Ice Cream Shop--Dramatic Play

While touring a school yesterday (this is part of the stress and such I have been dealing with), Hazel had the best time playing with the ice cream shop that was set up in the PreK classroom. I promised her that if we continued the tour and left the room we would set one up at home. The set up in the classroom was simple--tins with large pom poms as scoops of ice cream labeled with ice cream flavors, two ice cream scoops, bowls, an empty root beer bottle and fancy cups for the root beer floats, spoons, a cash register and a telephone and a blackboard with the prices and such.

Bowl of Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

We of course did it with a bit more creativity. I added black dots to the white pom poms to make chocolate chip ice cream. (Hazel has informed me I need to make some cookie dough ice cream next.) We also thought about some toppings.

Using smaller pom poms for cherries, marshmallows, nuts, chocolate chips and tiny pom poms for candies. Then we put some longer skinny beads in a sprinkle jar for rainbow sprinkles.

Bowl of Chocolate Ice Cream with Sprinkles

Oh, the classroom also had some plastic ice cream cones. It took us awhile to find something to use, but we found these scented bubble ones. Our plan is to dump out the bubble liquids into our supplies for outside and just keep the ice cream cones. We need to do this with our "soda" bottle as well.

I bought her two scoops at the Dollar Tree as well as the plastic bowls. I found chocolate colored pom poms at Michaels and then discovered A.C. Moore had bags that only had the two inch pom poms in them (but no browns). We also found our sign/placemat at the Christmas Tree Shop. I added Hazel's nickname and shop to it.

Then I printed labels for the ice cream containers. I invaded our Tuperware cabinet and also picked up some at the Dollar Tree.

She now has nine flavors: strawberry, vanilla, black raspberry, blue raspberry, blueberry lemonade, chocolate, chocolate chip, orange sherbet, and lemon sherbet. Oh, and apparently she has an assistant.

But be careful when ordering, the assistant likes to attack feet if they get too close.

Hazel has no idea what a root beer float is, but she had to have the glasses like the classroom did. So we bought a few and got the bubble stuff in a "soda" bottle.

Root Beer Float

I tried to explain it to her, but since she has never liked anything to drink that is carbonated she really does not know what soda is.

Black Raspberry with Nuts

Now this is her favorite thing to play. She told me in bed tonight that she could not wait to play ice cream shop in the morning. 

Chocolate Ice Cream with a Cherry on Top

I think my activity tonight will be to find the instructions for felt popsicles I once saw on-line. 

Adding Sprinkles to Strawberry Ice Cream

Oh, and she is packing some of it up so she can take it in a truck and go around town. Her truck is a series of chairs and things all lined up behind her rocking horse (which she is really too big for but will not let us put it away). 

Ok, off to find some popsicle patterns. Have a great night/day! Do you want some ice cream?

Fairy Tales in Different Cultures--Egyptian Cinderella

Today I am going to share with you a version of Cinderella from Egypt. Now the most fascinating thing to me about this story is there is some historical truth to it. According to the Author's Note at the end of the book: the fact that there was a Greek slave girl named Rhodopis and she married the Pharaoh Amasis and became his queen. This is one of the oldest Cinderella tales and it was first recorded by the Roman historian Strabo in the first century B.C.

Sharing Saturday 13-19

 

I have to apologize as I have not yet visited the 81 wonderful ideas shared last week. I hopefully will find time this weekend, but with Hazel's dance recital and Mother's Day (so lots of time with extended family), I'm not sure when I might. I will get there eventually. However there were many others visiting them (we had over 950 views). There was not one that was most clicked, so I thought I would just share a few of the Mother's Day ideas.

Homemade Mother's Day Gift Ideas

A week ago I began a link party for Homemade Mother's Day Gift Ideas. Have you shared yours yet? Today I thought I would feature a few in case your child still needs to make you one or maybe one for a grandmother.

Virtual Flat Stanley in the Netherlands

So last week I introduced our Virtual Flat Stanley Series. Flat Stanley is based on the book, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. There are now a series of these easy reader books about a boy named Stanley who is made flat when a bulletin board falls on him during the night. He is flat and small enough to be mailed in an envelope to travel.

Now this series began because my aunt emailed me a couple of weeks ago to help her step-granddaughter with her school Flat Stanley project. The Flat Stanley template they mailed to England never got returned, so she had nothing for the project. Since I live in the same state, I thought it might be fun for her to have some from around the world--even if they were just pictures due to time constraints. I e-mailed a few blogger friends and got a few responses. Now we are opening it up to anyone who wants to participate. You can get more information here.

Today Flat Stanley is in the Netherlands!

The first person who responded to my request was from E Strea Chikitu in the Netherlands. For those who have not had the pleasure of visiting this wonderful blog, you will often see her beautiful creations there--often crocheted and she even gives the patterns sometimes. Oh, how I wish I could crochet better. I may attempt it again after seeing her beautiful creations.

Now some information about this particular Flat Stanley:

On April 30th our queen handed over her crown to her oldest son. And so we have a new King this week.Our oldest daughter gave Stanley woodden shoes and Dutch National colors so he will be ready to celebrate The Crowningsday.Stanley is in our front yard with Rozemarijn. We put out the flag since it's our new Kings birthday today.

This picture is for the prince becoming king.

You can see more pictures of honoring the new king at E Chikitu Strea .

Hazel and I wanted to explore The Netherlands a bit more. After all the whole point of this series to learn more about other places. Luckily we had a few books from the library and found some crafts and coloring pages at DLTK's Crafts for Kids. The first book we have out is Easy Breakfasts From Around the World by Sheila Griffin Llanas. Now we had this book for Around the World in 12 Dishes, so you will see it again soon as we do our post about Finland.

This book is wonderful because it gives a little introduction to each country and then an easy recipe for a breakfast there. So our breakfast from the Netherlands was Anijsmelk and Hagelslag. Anijsmelk is warm milk flavored with anise seeds and honey or sugar. Hazel loved it!! I was actually surprised at how good it was since I am not usually a fan of anise seeds. Then Hagelslag is toast with chocolate sprinkles on it. Now we didn't have any chocolate sprinkles, but we had leftover Christmas sprinkles so we used those.

We also had some Gouda cheese. We made Hazel's toast and cheese into butterflies. We happened to use whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread for the toast. Oh, and we cut up some apple since breakfast in our house is not complete without some fruit.

Crushing the Anise Seeds

Hazel enjoyed playing chef. We made this when she stayed home with a cold the other day, so it gave her something fun to do in the morning.

Stirring the Anijsmelk

Spreading butter on the toast

Her favorite part was of course putting on the sprinkles. I have to admit we had red and green sprinkles all over our kitchen after this breakfast.

We also wanted to learn a bit about the culture. We did some coloring pages where we saw the wooden clogs similar to the ones on Flat Stanley as well as windmills and tulips. Plus of course a map and a flag.

We also made a windmill from a toilet paper roll. We got his craft from DLTK.

Steven was surprised when Hazel told him about the windmills in the Netherlands. 

We also took out of the library Birthdays Around the World by Mary D. Lankford. Now since one of Hazel's dolls or stuffed animal has a birthday every day, we can say she loves birthdays. So I thought she might enjoy hearing some of the customs in other countries. This book gives a little introduction about each country as well. For example it tells us at The Netherlands means the low lands. It also goes into how the windmills were used to pump water from the land. Now they use diesel and electric pumps.

In the Netherlands, the family often decorates a birthday chair. They may use garland called slingers. The birthday child often gets to choose the food for the evening meal and stays up later than usual. Traditionally they have very rich and elaborate pastries called gebakjes. A birthday cake is served without candles. For a very large or special birthday they may have an ice cream cake. A game often played at a party is Koekhappen. Children are blindfolded and try to eat a soft cookie hanging on a string. Another traditional birthday game is Zacdoekje Leggen or Drop the Handkerchief. Children sit in a circle and one child is It. The It child walks around the circle and if they catch someone not paying attention they drop the handkerchief behind that child and then that child has to chase the It child around the circle. If they tag the It child they get to sit back down, but if the It child makes it back to the empty spot in the circle, the new child is It. Editorial Note: I have been informed that the family with this wonderful Flat Stanley does put candles in the birthday cakes.

So that is what we learned while Flat Stanley is in the Netherlands. We hope you will join us next week to see where Flat Stanley is visiting.

Flat Stanley's Travels