#barbara bockman

[jaynemoraski]

TV-Free Day 189: Apple Alligator Smiles

Yes we seem to play with our food a bit more than normal families. When I saw a smile made with red apple slices and marshmallows, I knew I had to modify it to make a green gator smile. 

You will need:

Green apples (Golden delicious actually tasted best)

Flavored cream cheese (We tested the apple smiles and found the original recipe that called for peanut butter made our marshmallow teeth look like they needed to be brushed. Ick…cream cheese to the rescue!)

Raisins

Mini marshmallows

toothpick (optional)

Steps

Cut a medium to large green apple in 8 slices about 3/4 inch thick each.[You’ll need thicker slices for the top of the gator head, and thinner slices for his lower jaw.] 

Follow the pattern shown here or free hand it on your own.

Cut another apple slice to slightly less than a ½ inch thick. 

Cut a small hole in the spot where the gator’s eye would be.

Have the kids Insert a raisin in the small eye hole, and add a dab of cream cheese to create a sparkle in his eye, if you’d like.

Spread the cream cheese on the “teeth” side of the alligator’s head, and on one side of his lower jaw.  Put 3 marshmallows in between the gator jaws, using the cream cheese to hold the marshmallows in =place. If you plan on moving your gator around a lot, you may need to stick a half of a toothpick into each side to hold it together.  Otherwise, you can set it on your kids plates and watch them grin right back.

Book to go with this activity:  I looked at folktales from around the world and couldn’t find one that described how alligators got their smiles, so I made up my own story.  How Alligator Got His Smile Back, by Jayne Moraski and illustrated Carl Kocich (Guardian Angel Publishing 2014).  Here’s a link to a review by Barbara Bockman. 

[jaynemoraski]

Day 88 of 365 TV-free activities: CD art

Today's CD art activity is a guest post from my friend Barbara Bockman.

  This craft was published in Stories for Children Magazine, online, November 2009 Volume 3 Issue 8.

This cheerful Yellow Bird is a recycled CD. Sometimes CDs get scratched or just go out of date. It’s a shame to throw them away when they can be used as a craft project.

If you would like to make a bird (the color is your choice) or any object of your choosing, here is the way to go about it.

COLLECT THESE MATERIALS:

A CD

A piece of yellow construction paper for the body

A piece of blue construction paper for the eyes

A piece of brown construction paper for the beak and feet

A piece of white construction paper for the feathers

A black marker for the center of the eyes

School glue

Scissors

WHAT TO DO:

Use the CD as the pattern and draw a circle on the yellow paper.

Cut out the paper circle. Glue it onto the CD.

Cut out two small round circles for the eyes, a brown beak, two feet, and the three feathers.

Glue the eyes and beak to the front of the body and dot the eyes with the black marker.

Glue the feathers to the back of the body.

THERE YOU ARE! YOU HAVE A BIRD.

With a magnet on the back you have REFRIGERATOR ART.

If you use the magnet that your mom got in the mail as a gift from some business, you have recycled two items.

Books:  In honor of Barbara's little yellow bird, try reading How Rocket Learned to Read by Tad Hills (Schwartz and Wade 2010). His lovable teacher in the story happens to be a little yellow bird.  This Parent's Choice Silver Honor winner is a great book for kids just learning to read, as Rocket spells out fun words like W-A-G and M-U-D.

In the sequel, Rocket Writes a Story (Schwartz and Wade 2012) Rocket takes all his new words and well...you can guess the rest.