Once we "arrived" in Italy we started with a dramatic play pizza kitchen. I created a pizza oven and pizza using a cardboard box, brown craft paper, paint, a sponge, felt and an electric tea light. To make the oven I folded one side of the box in on itself and cut out the bottom. Then I wrapped it in brown paper and used a sponge and red paint to make faux bricks. For the fire element, I used a piece of the box that I cut out and drew a flame shape and painted it. Then I hot-glued it to a longer strip of cardboard and glued it to the inside on the bottom of the box. Then I placed an electric tea light behind the flame. I think the effect was really great and it only took about 15 minutes to make!

For the pizza I took various pieces and colors of felt and cut out shapes to look like different toppings, crust and sauce. I used tan cut into a circle to create the crust and red cut into a circle for the sauce. The toppings I made matched the order form that I found here for free! For the pineapple I cut yellow felt into semi triangles and added a few lines to make it look segmented. For the purple onion I cut crescent shapes out of purple felt. For pepperoni I cut smaller circles out of red and did the same for ham but used pink. I used black circles without centers for black olives, pink with red lines cut into rectangles for bacon and green squiggle circle shapes without centers for green bell pepper. For the cheese I used cream colored yarn cut into 3 inch pieces. I also made spaghetti and sauce using cream yarn for noodles and red for sauce. I grabbed a few containers and quickly drew labels for the lids to store each topping. Then collected a few plates, bowls, utensils, aprons and a chef's hat from the play kitchen, made a quick sign stating "Arthur and Lillian's Pizza Joint" out of craft paper and, Voila! Dramatic play pizza kitchen! This was a major hit! They played for hours off and on throughout the week and the best part is that now it is a permanent addition to their current play kitchen so, they'll get to continue enjoying it!

For breakfast one day I made zepoli which are kind of like donuts but actually a little more nutritious as they contain ricotta cheese. It may not seem like a big deal to you but, I actually fried something! I usually avoid it like the plague. However, I decided these sounded so yummy that I would go for it. I thought they were fantastic and actually easy but the kids weren't as enthusiastic. I think they're crazy. Lillian ate one and Arthur just licked the powdered sugar off before declaring they were "ucky". Ugh! Seriously?! Kids! Whatever, more for me! (I actually had a playdate with a friend and let her try them. She thought they were awesome too. So, I'm not crazy, just my kids.) You can find the recipe in the MC recipe book here.

To finish out the day we discussed the city of Venice by watching a this video, making a gondola craft using this free printable and reading the book "Olivia Goes to Venice" and "This is Venice". Both were big hits and were read multiple times throughout the week.

After learning about Venice, we discussed the city of Pisa and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We watched this video and then we made a craft version for ourselves using an empty toilet paper roll, white paint, paper, black marker and green crayon. Surprisingly, they really enjoyed this simple craft and were very proud of their creations. To make them lean, I cut an small portion from the bottom of the roll at an angle and taped it to the paper.

For lunch we made our own pizza. It was pretty simple using pre-made pillsbury pizza crust, a jar of pizza sauce, fresh and shredded mozzarella, pepperoni and I added basil from our garden and black olives to my portion. Yum!

Our next focus was on opera since it's a pretty big deal in Italy. We watched quite a few videos on youtube to get a good idea of what it is including the following: "What is Opera", "Sesame Street: People in Your Neighborhood Opera Singer", "Sesame Street: Marilyn Sings C is for Cookie"and "Zoom: A Soup Opera" Once we had a good idea of what opera was, we watched "Mozart's Magic Flute: An animated plot summary" to learn about a popular opera story line and then watched these segments from a performance of that opera: "Metropolitan Opera: The Magic Flute" and "Erika Miklosa: Queen of the Night". I actually thought I had really worn out the opera thing and that they were both totally over it but, Lilly said she would like to watch a whole opera in real life and at various points throughout the day I caught her singing about her actions in an operatic style. Including a point when she sang, "Arthur has a poopy!" in a very dramatic, Queen of the Night manner. It was pretty hilarious and let me know that she got something out of the whole lesson.

After learning about opera we discussed Michelangelo and watched this video about him. Then we practiced creating art like he did when he painted the Sistine Chapel after looking at pictures of the ceiling located there. I taped paper to the underside of our piano bench and gave them a bucket of crayons. At first they weren't really into it but in the end they each created multiple masterpieces and spent about 30 minutes or more drawing. I call that a win!

We finished the week by creating laurel crowns using paper plates, glue and green construction paper. I prepped the plates by cutting the center out and cut out leaf shapes from the green paper. We discussed how in ancient Italy, they were often given to scholars upon completion of schooling and, since we finished learning about Italy they got to wear them! I was super impressed with Arthur and his focus on this craft. He spent at least 30 minutes and actually completed the crown. He did insist on looking fabulous with Lillian's sun hat while working which made it even more adorable. It even looked pretty ok for a two year old! I was, however, unable to capture a good photo as the apple sauce was more important at the time. Lilly was into though.

We wrapped up the week by making ravioli from scratch. I purchased this handy ravioli press, we made the dough and mixed up the filling and boom! Ravioli! We made a bacon, basil, cream sauce to go with them and boy was it delicious! You can get the recipe from the MC Recipe book here. I also made the Roman Apple Cake recipe found in the book. It was ok, but not my favorite. It may fave been because I ran out of flour and had to use coconut flour instead.

Finally, here are my horrible photo shopped pics from our "trip" to Italy. So silly!

It was a fun week and I'm ready for our next country, France! See you soon!

Week two of Mommy Camp focused on a country close to my heart, Spain! As a Spanish teacher and past visitor to the beautiful country, I was pretty excited to share a little of it's culture and color with my kids. We learned about bullfighting and flamenco. Got crafty with some culture based projects. Made some delicious food and got inspired by Picasso, Miró and Gaudí.

Before we could experience Spain we had to "fly" there first! We got the dramatic play airport items and travel stuff. The kids were issued new tickets from Brazil to Spain (Brazil was last week) and took a plane ride. It was just as fun this week as the first when we travelled to Brazil. You can see how I created all of the dramatic play airport items in this post.

Once we "landed" the kids were able to enter the area I set up to represent Spain. I created a mural of sorts using brown butcher paper and oil pastels. On their table I placed the books for the week, two Spanish fans, some fake euros and castanets. We also looked at the map to discuss where we travelled and the weather there versus the weather where we live. Then we watched this video about Madrid.

Once we had "landed" it was time for breakfast. We made magdalenas which are a very eggy lemon muffin that is popular in Barcelona. You can find the recipe in my original MC post that includes ALL of the recipes! (I had planned to make something different and save these for later when we focused on Barcelona but these were quick and we were hungry!) After eating we learned about Miró and his art, watched this video and created Miró inspired art by looking at google images.

After all of that fun we learned a little about bull fighting by reading the book "The Story of Ferdinand" and then watching the cartoon. We discussed how the practice of bull fighting is not nice even though it is a popular element in Spanish culture. Then we created a toilet paper tube bull using a free printable from crayola. We also watched a video of men in Spain doing the Corrida or bull fighting dance. Before nap we also had a blast playing a popular hand clapping game called "Mariposa" we literally spent at least 40 minutes doing this over and over again. They loved it!

Once we finished learning about bull fighting, we focused on flamenco. We started out by reading the book "Lola's Fandango". We also listened to it using the CD that came with the book. Then we played with some flamenco dancer finger puppets that I made, colored a worksheet, made castanets and Spanish fans and even attempted to learn a few flamenco steps using this video. ​

We ended the day with breakfast for dinner by making Spanish tortilla and churro waffles. Both recipes can be found at my original MC post. Let me say, those churro waffles were Ah-May-Zing! Lilly helped with making them and everyone had seconds!

Our final focus was on famous artists from Spain. First we discussed Picasso and looked at some of his art. Then we created our own Picasso inspired cubist portrait paper bag costumes inspired by this website. They literally spent at least 20 minutes walking around with paper bags on their heads and giggling whenever they ran into anything. It was hilarious! We also had a Spanish inspired lunch of bocadillos which is just a fun way of saying sandwiches. We ended our Spain week by learning about Antoní Gaudí. We watched this fantastic video for kids about him and then worked on our own mosaic animals. Lilian, however, got a bit bored with the detail required to complete it and ended up coloring a large portion of her unicorn yellow. She is only 5 so coloring any portion with "tiles" was good with me. Arthur wanted nothing to do with it and was promptly put down for a nap after writhing in the floor in protest.

And here are my horrible photoshopped pics of our trip!

We had a great time on our "visit" to Spain! Next week we're off to Italy! There'll be a dramatic play italian restaurant, lessons about the opera and so much more! I can't wait!

In my last MC post I detailed all of the fun we had on our first day "visiting" Brazil. In this post, I'll let you know about all of the other fun activities, crafts and craziness that we completed including our very own Carnaval celebration, more yummy treat tasting and learning about the rainforest!

We started off by learning about the rainforest and discussing it's four layers. We watched this video about the layers and then we made a diagram demonstrating them. We also learned about some of the animals found in the rainforest like the morpho butterfly which is found in both Central and South America, the toucan and snakes and watched this video. After that we made some pretty adorable paper plate butterfly collages with tissue paper, learned how to draw a toucan and made a spiral snake craft that was both easy and cool! We also learned about how chocolate is made and where it comes from by watching this video before making a chocolaty snack called brigadieros (chocolate fudge balls). Then we read a few books including "The Umbrella" and "The Great Kapok Tree". After reading "The Great Kapok Tree" we did a little learning comprehension using a free worksheet and game. We rounded it all out with a fun jungle dance video!

Let's talk about the fun we had with food! We made all sorts of Brazilian deliciousness including Brazilian lemonade, empanadas, Abacaxi com Hortela (pineapple mint juice), Macarronda com Requeijao (macaroni and cheese), brigadiers (chocolate fudge balls), Páo de Queijo (cheesy bread) and brazilian ham and cheese rolls. All of the recipes can be found in my first post about this summer's mommy camp here.

After learning about the rainforest, we learned about the city of Rio de Janeiro. We watched a video about the city and then talked about where it was located. After that we learned about Carnaval! We watched this video of carnaval dancers, tried to learn the Samba with this video and then made our own Carnaval themed headdresses, arm/leg bands and tambourines! Finally, we held our own Carnaval parade. They both had a ton of fun 

We ended by discussing a the popular artist, Romero Britto, from Brazil. We watched a video about his work and then looked at some of his art using google images. Then, Lilly created her own Britto inspired art with a sharpie and markers.

As a close to our first week of MC, we filled out our travel journal. I created the journal and you can download it here. It was a great way to reflect on what we learned as well as get in a little reading and writing practice.

Just for fun, I did some really quick and not super impressive but very fun photoshopping to make us look like we actually visited Brazil. Goofy, I know. I did it all on my phone using the free adobe photoshop app.

It was a great start to our Mommy Camp for the summer and I can't wait until our next week when we travel to Spain!

We're all guilty of it, pinning till our fingers are blue and brains are numb with new and exciting ideas for our eventual free-time but, when that free-time comes we manage to find other things to do and those pins remain unattempted on our numerous cutely named boards. Well, I was inspired to actually complete one of these long forgotten pins today in preparation for a mini-trip to my Dad's house with both kids.

Usually when we stay with my Dad, Arthur sleeps in the pack-n-play and we create a hodgepodge of pillows, blankets and a foam mat for camping for Lillian. I always feel kinda bad because she's basically sleeping on hardwood floor and I don't think she sleeps as well or for as long when we're there. So, I was going to buy her a collapsible kid cot. But, I dilly dallied and didn't order one in time. So, Pinterest it was! I found this adorable project that even though it involved sewing I figured I could manage a few straight lines. (I was actually taught to sew by my German grandmother who used to work for the famous design houses in Germany. But, she was very particular and made me rip out every seam that was not perfect which was pretty often. So, I have a bit of a complex about my sewing ability. I'm also just not patient enough.)

So, I headed to Wal-Mart and purchased two sets of their cheap pillowcases for about $5 per set and grabbed three pillows for less than $3 a piece. When I got home I dragged my sewing machine from the dark depths of the garage and set it up. It actually took me longer to remember how to thread the bobbin and get the machine functional that it did to actually sew the cases together. Once I was ready, I pinned the cases together long wise and sewed two straight lines. Voila! Done! I decided to pull out my trusty silhouette machine and created a glittery custom iron-on complete with unicorns to make it extra special. 

Hopefully she'll sleep better and if nothing else I know that I tried to make her more comfy and the mom guilt will abate. It was a super easy thing to create and I recommend it if you need or want a nap mat for your kid that doesn't cost a fortune.