Simple home made bread

This Recipe is from a lovely Waldorf inspired book called 'Heaven on Earth', by Sharifa Oppenheimer. The children helped knead and shape the bread dough into letters, shapes and animals.

Foolproof No-Rise Bread Recipe


Dissolve in 1 cup boiling water:
4 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup honey


Stir until cool 


In a separate bowl, dissolve in 1.5 cups lukewarm water:


2 Tbsp dry baker's yeast

Add to honey-butter and stir.


Add, 1 cup at a time:


6-7 cups whole wheat pastry flour.
Knead on floured board.
Shape into rolls, bunnies, bread baskets, braids etc.


Bake at 350 F, 40-45 mins (depending on oven). Tap on top to test- a hollow sound means it's done.

Nature Table- Autumn

We are adding to our nature table almost daily- adding interesting leaves we find, acorns, pine-cones, gum-nuts, rocks and other organic items that inspire us with colour or texture.

I think nature tables are a lovely way to celebrate the changing seasons, appreciate the beauty within found objects and a way of bringing the outdoors inside.

Waldorf dolls

These are a couple more clumsy attempts at Waldorf Dolls. I used a combination of instructions from my beloved Creative Play for Toddlers book, and Toymaking with children. 

For the hair on the purple doll I followed these instructions from the Crafty Sheep Blog. 

Nature Table

Finn has a Nature Table on our paved outdoor area (a nature table is really meant to be set up inside as a way of bringing nature indoors, but we lack space in our house, and his table is pretty large and messy!). Every time we go on walks he collects new things to add to his collection- feathers, rocks, sticks, seed pods etc. 

Today I thought we needed to add some people to the table so he could create some natural scenes, and I decided to use a gorgeous family of wooden peg dolls I bought recently on Etsy which I had been meaning to do something with. 

I made them to represent our little family, so I glued (using PVA) some felt for our clothes (Finn choose the colours he thought were our favourites), I tied a small bit of string around the middle, attached a bit of woolen hair (I used some unspun Alpaca fleece, but anything would do), and drew on some simple faces with a fine permanent marker. 

Then we created an island setting for them using rocks, sand, bark and sticks,  

and a seed pod worked well as a raft.. 

If you don't have wooden peg dolls to use, sticks can make really sweet gnomes as demonstrated on this site: http://thatartistwoman.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-make-gnomes-out-of-sticks.html

Felt Crown

To encourage imaginative play - I made a couple of simple felt crowns. 

I used a bit of filling inside for the crown to add dimension, and used hat elastic at the back. I glued a few small felt shapes to the front as jewels. Each one took about 10 minutes to make, and has created hours of enjoyment. 

Below is a link to a more detailed tutorial on how to make a felt crown:

http://balancingeverything.com/2008/04/30/waldorf-like-felt-crown-tutorial/

Knitted Rabbit

I made this little rabbit from a hand knitted square, with the sides sewn in to create the shape and filled with carded wool. If you are not a knitter, or have limited time, you could cut a square out of a an old woollen blanket or jumper and hem in the sides. I was thinking I might be able to make other animals from the basic shape. 

Finn created a little burrow for it out of pillows and blankets.

Here is a link to similar instructions. http://www.heartstringsfiberarts.com/bunny-pattern.shtm 

Standing Puppets

 

I made these little standing puppets following the simple instructions from a wonderful book called 'Creative play for toddlers' (Christopher Clouder & Janni Nicol), changing the characters to represent my two children Finn and Evie. 

Finn loved his so much that I made a version of himself to take to bed (without the cardboard tube in the center). 

With some help toddler's could make your own version with toilet roll covered with felt (using glue instead of sewing) and a little styrofoam ball, or wooden bead for a head.

Go Fish

This activity was a bit time consuming to make, but well worth the effort.

Materials: coloured felt, buttons, needle and thread, string, a smooth stick, magnets, washers, polyfill, and decorations (sequins, feathers). 

I made little felt fish out of coloured felt stuffed with polyfill. I then attached a washer to each mouth. I added different shapes and decorations to each fish. 

For the fishing rod a magnet was attached to a piece of string tied to a stick. 

We used a silk scarf as the 'pond', and used a little pan to put the fish in (although you could use a small bucket or basket). 

It is great activity for teaching children about colours, developing counting skills and coordination. 

I made a couple of extra rods so Finn can play with his friends. 

A simpler version would be to make one dimensional fish out of felt, or even cardboard. A  paperclip could be attached to the mouth area instead of a washer. 

Butterfly mobile

We made this simple mobile from tissue paper and pipe cleaners, and hung with sewing thread. It looked so pretty fluttering in the breeze.