farm unit | There's Just One Mommy

How to Make Butter

OneMommy — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 18:43:37 +0000

There is nothing quite like homemade butter! And, because it’s so simple to make, even the kids can get in on the action with this one!

We enjoyed making some homemade butter during homeschool and would love to share the recipe with you!

Ingredients for Homemade Butter:

Jar with a screw on lid
Whipping Cream
Energetic kids!

Simple Steps to Delicious Butter:

Pour whipping cream into a jar that has a screw on lid. I chose to use a small, plastic peanut butter jar we had scrubbed out, just in case we got a little carried away in our shaking! Make sure you leave plenty of room for the liquid to move around in the jar.
Give the jar to the energetic kids and tell them to start shaking! I had fun watching them jump up and down and get their whole bodies into the process. (Unfortunately there was too much movement for a good pic!)
After shaking for 10 minutes a glob will have formed in the jar. (This is your butter!)
Pour the contents of the jar into a small bowl. The solid glob is your butter; the liquid is buttermilk.
Pour the buttermilk into a small container to save for later if desired. Rinse your butter off with water to get the remaining buttermilk off of it.
If desired, add a bit of salt (or other seasonings) to the butter.
Enjoy!

This butter is definitely better than any store bought I’ve ever had!

It would taste delicious with these homemade muffins!

The post How to Make Butter first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Cardboard Tube Sheep Craft

OneMommy — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 02:56:36 +0000

Chances are if you’ve ever picked up a bag of cotton balls at the store, your child soon discovered how fun it is to hug the squishy bag. It’s that fun texture that makes cotton balls so much fun to use in kids crafts.

You can have fun using cotton balls to make this adorable cardboard tube sheep craft.

This fuzzy sheep craft would be cute as part of a farm unit or as an Easter craft.

But we think sheep are so cute, you could really do this one any time of the year.

Cardboard Tube Sheep Craft

Materials Needed:

Empty Cardboard Tube
Cotton Balls
Black Pipe Cleaners
Black Craft Foam
Wiggly Eyes
Hole Punch
Hot Glue
Craft Glue & Paintbrush

Start making your cardboard tube sheep by cutting a toilet paper tube in half. You could also cut a 2 inch portion from a paper towel tube.

Use a hole puncher to make four holes on the bottom of our tube, 2 on each end. These will be for the legs.

Thread a 2 1/2 inch long piece of black pipe cleaner through each pair of holes to create the sheep’s legs. Secure it with a piece of tape inside the tube.

We crumpled up some paper and stuffed it inside our tube. This step isn’t necessary, but it will help give you a little something extra to glue the sheep’s head to later on.

Cut a face shape from black craft foam and use the hot glue gun to carefully glue it to the edge of the cardboard tube and crumpled paper.

Now it’s time to give your sheep some wool.

Using a paintbrush have your child coat the cardboard tube with white school glue and then add cotton balls.

When doing the ends of the tube you will need to pull the cotton balls apart a bit to help them spread more. Glue them to the cardboard tube’s edge and the crumpled paper that is stuck inside.

Finally, add wiggly eyes to the sheep’s face and let the sheep craft dry.

Want to make a baby to go with your big sheep? It’s super easy!

Just cut a small face from black craft foam, glue it to one cotton ball, and add itty-bitty google eyes.

This fuzzy little cardboard tube sheep craft is fun to do in the spring or any time of the year. And once it is dry, your child will have fun playing with their creation.

Sight Word Game: Reading Farm

OneMommy — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 02:52:19 +0000

I love mixing sensory play and learning opportunities! This week I created a simple farm-themed sensory bin that included a variety of the CVC words we’ve been practicing.

For our “dirt” I used the edible cloud dough we made a couple weeks ago. (It’s been in a sealed container and is still in great shape!)

I used green construction paper to act as our crops. On each strip I wrote a CVC word. (Think words like hop, hat, bed, sit…)

Because our sensory bin still had plenty of room, I added a few other farm items to explore. The Playmobil Farm Tractor actually belonged to my husband long ago. It was a fun surprise for the kids, along with the farm animals.

I tossed in a handful of oats for good measure. After all, those animals have to eat!

I set it up so they could take turns exploring the bin.

My son had fun using the little boy farmer to pull each “crop.” Before he could load it on the tractor’s scoop he had to sound out the word.

Of course there was plenty of squishing the cloud dough and playing along the way!

He was proud to get through all those words, and I was proud of him, too!

Once he finished exploring the bin, I set it back up for big sister.

She flew through those words!

And then she had fun mixing those oats with the cloud dough for a whole new texture to explore!

So why a sensory bin?

The bin allowed each of them an opportunity to explore different textures while practicing early reading skills. It also gave them that bit of time to “play” independently, which always helps them have smoother play time together afterwards. (And my favorite reason: giving them different textures to explore in a sensory bin seems to keep my oldest out of my lotions, soaps, and whatever else she just wants to “explore.”)

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Simple Pig Craft

OneMommy — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:34:31 +0000

We’ve been having fun with our farm unit, reading about different farm animals and doing a few kid crafts along the way.

This simple pig craft had my little farmers smiling all the way to the farm.

Simple crafts like this one make learning more fun for young kids.

You could use this pig craft for a farm unit, like we did, or as a craft for the letter “P.” If you are working on a farm unit, you might also want to check out our Vowel Farm Activity or Sight Word Reading Farm Game.

Pig Craft

Start with an 8 inch square of pink construction paper.

To create the pig’s ears, fold the top corners of the square down, towards the square’s center.

Flip the pig over and fold the bottom corners in towards the pig’s back.

Cut two rectangles, approximately 2 inches wide each, out of pink paper. Glue them to the back of the pig, over the corners you just folded over. These will be the pig’s legs.

Tape a small piece of curled pink ribbon to the back a the tail.

Have your child draw a face for their pig, using crayons, colored pencils, or markers.

For extra fun you might want to use wiggly eyes for the pig craft.

Vowel Farm — Game to Promote Vowel Recognition

OneMommy — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 19:17:29 +0000

We have been working on a farm unit in homeschool this past week. We’ve also been talking about vowels. To keep with the farm theme I came up with this simple game to identify vowels and consonants.

Affiliate links have been used below. Find my full disclosure here.

Vowel Recognition Activity

Materials Needed:

Large Piece of White Paper and Marker
Toy Tractor/Front Loader
Letter Tiles

Draw 2 large circles on your piece of white paper. If your child is just beginning to learn the vowels, you may want to label one of the circles (a, e, i, o, u).

Scatter a handful of letter tiles (making sure there are plenty of vowels included in the bunch) on the floor near the paper and grab a toy tractor with a front scoop.

The goal of the game is to use the tractor to push all the vowels into the correct circle and all the consonants into the other circle. (My son pretended he was moving his crops to the correct areas.)

After playing the game several times flip the paper over and draw two new circles. This time around just label one circle “vowels” — do not include the letters a, e, i, o, u. Now the challenge is for your child to know which letters are vowels without having them written down to check.

You could easily modify this game to fit the interests of your child. Construction trucks, animals, or even princess dolls can help move the letter tiles to the correct spots.