Saturday, December 22, 2007

Ornament Recipe - Kid Friendly


Here it is Saturday and I'm looking at a 2 week break from school. Of course I'll be up there working on lesson plans and so on a couple of days. The end of the school day doesn't mean the end of work! My kiddos went home happy after the Christmas party yesterday. During the week I provided ingredients for them to create gifts for their parents/caregivers. They included cards, a candle and two ornaments. One was a 3D paper ornament either made from pertty patterned paper or self decorated, their choice. One was an applesauce and cinnamon ornament. Sounds weird doesn't it? Other than the thiness our ornaments looked like these.

These applesauce and cinnamon ornaments went home with my students to decorate their trees. The kids enjoyed making them. We had a lesson on measurement (we tripled the recipe) as the ingredients were prepared in the mixing bowl. The resulting dough was rolled out on a table and each student chose from a variety of cookie cutters I had on hand. They cut the dough, removed the shape to a square of wax paper, cut a hole at the top of each ornament with a straw, and placed them on a bookcase to dry. With 20 of them drying the room sure smelled good for awhile! I purchased some pretty shiny ribbon for the children to thread through the hole once the ornaments were dry. We discussed the fact that these would not be edible once they were ready. ("edible" was added to the academic vocabulary folder)


Recipe
3/4 cup applesauce
one 4.12 oz. bottle of ground cinnamon
Mix to form a stiff dough. Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutter. Make a hole for the ribbon. Carefully, place on a rack to dry. Allow the cutouts to air dry for several days, turning occasionally.
Tips learned from experimenting with this before I took it to school for the kids to make: make sure it is at least 1/4 inch thick or a little thicker or the ornaments will break easily. Be sure to turn! The ornaments in the picture above look thinner than they need for easy handling by young children.

3 comments:

Mrs. G. said...

These sound wonderful. Sadly, my kids are too old to want to sit down and make ornaments with me, but, luckily, I don't mind working alone one bit. Thanks for the recipe.

And enjoy your two weeks off!!

Willard said...

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Excellent sky watch photos!

I hope you enjoy your vacation. I really enjoyed Christmas vacation when I was in school and college!

Darla said...

Cinnamon ornaments are among my favorites. Even after a few years they still seem to smell good and the memories of the little hands that made them last forever.

Darla