Chocolate chip cookie recipe

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It may be a cliche but, in our house at least, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – which makes these Chocolate Chip Cookies the perfect gift for Fathers’ Day. The recipe is easy, and very yummy, so with just a little help your children should be able to bake some ready to give this Sunday.

You will need:

4oz butter (at room temperature)

4oz sugar

8oz self raising flour

1 dessert spoon golden syrup

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 dessert spoons of milk

2 handfuls of chocolate chips (white, milk  or dark chocolate)

To make them:

1. Beat the butter and sugar together.

2. Add the syrup.

3. Warm the milk (10 secs-ish in microwave) and add the bicarbonate of soda.

4. Add in the flour and chocolate chips and stir to make the dough.

5. Make balls of dough and press them onto a greased baking tray.

Allow plenty of room to spread

6. Bake for about 25 minutes* in an oven at gas mark 3-4 / 160-180C.

* This will depend on how big your cookies are. We think less (baking time) is more, as we like chewy rather than crunchy cookies.

Wrap them in cellophane and add a hand written note, and have a happy Fathers’ Day.

Preschool car wash

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Why not? ….  add some bubbles to your water play today and set up a carwash in the garden?

Include some washing up sponges and scrubbers and get your trikes sparkly and clean.

And how about giving the children a purse with some coins so they can count out and pay for their carwash?

More fun doing maths this way than with a worksheet!

Growing vegetables with children

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Do you grow fruit and vegetables with your children?

Children benefit so much from seeing where food really comes from – and I find they’re much more likely to try new foods if they’ve helped to grow and prepare it. A cut and come again salad is a great way to start, no matter how small your garden. Sow the seeds in a pot of compost, have the children water them and wait for the seedlings to pop up. The good thing about a cut and come again salad is just that – the children can help themselves to a few leaves and the plant will kindly grow them some more. Sow  seeds every 3-4 weeks and you’ll have a summer full of salad. Add a cherry tomato plant and let the children tuck in. The girls loved going on a treasure hunt round the garden looking for things to put in their salad and found lettuce, radish, nasturtiums and herbs. They ate the lot!

Barbeque bananas

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A delicious and easy receipe when you’re barbequeing, and just right for children, is:

Barbeque Bananas

Take one banana per person and slice down the centre. Fill the slit with chocolate chips.

Wrap each banana in a tinfoil parcel and place on the barbeque after the main courses has been cooked. The remaining heat from the coals will bake the bananas and melt the chocolate.

Unwrap* your banana parcels, add a scoop of icecream and enjoy.

*This is going to be hot of course, so leave it to a grownup who’s wearing oven gloves.

Why not use a disposable barbeque and head off for a picnic in the great outdoors?

works for me wednesday at we are that family

Bean bag games

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Have some fun with bean bags!

We have four colours of bean bags so we chose four coloured chalks to match.  We drew four different shapes and numbered them 1 to 4. Then it was time to play.

Have a go at colour matching – can you throw the blue bean bag into the blue shape?

Have a go with numbers – can you throw a bean bag onto the number 1? onto the number 2?

 

 

Have a go with shapes – can you throw all the bean bags into the circle?

 

 

With older children you can let them throw at the targets and add up the scores as you go along.

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