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Homemaking

Cooking with Children: How to Make “Stone Soup”

Children as young as 2- or 3-years old are capable of helping with cooking. Involving children with meal preparation teaches them real-life skills and helps them feel capable and confident.

This week on Sunday with Sarah I demonstrate how I made Stone Soup (vegetable soup) with the children in my kindergarten class.

Though I never use a recipe, here are the general instructions:

Chop an apple and an onion. Peel and crush 2-4 cloves of garlic. Sauté the apples, onions and garlic in olive oil and about a tablespoon of butter.
Add 2-3 bouillon cubes, or 2-3 T. of bouillon paste (I like Better Than Bouillon) to the sauteed mixture.
Add 2-3 quarts of water and put a clean, washed stone in the pot, and let simmer.
Have children help you chop whatever vegetables you have on hand. Veggies can include potatoes, carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, broccoli, celery, zucchini, kale, spinach, or virtually any other type of fresh vegetable.
Have children help add chopped vegetables to pot.
Add a cup of barley or rice that has been rinsed and soaked overnight, or pasta in fun shapes.
Let simmer for an hour.
Enjoy! (Makes a full pot that will feed a family, with enough for leftovers.)

Items demonstrated in this video:

Find them all under our Cooking category at Bella Luna Toys.

Click here to read the Stone Soup story.

Bon appétit!

If you decide to make Stone Soup with your children, let me know how it turns out! In what other ways to you involve your child/ren in the kitchen? What cooking tasks have they helped you with? Share your thoughts, comments and questions here!

May 4, 2014 by Sarah Baldwin

Family, Homemaking, Parenting, Waldorf Education

Five Verses to Sing Through the Day with Children

Sing Through the Day!

After last week’s video in which I talked about the power of verses for easing transitions with children, I had many requests this week to share more verses.

So this week, here are five verses that can be sung during transition times throughout the day. I have printed the words to each below, and you can watch the video to learn the tunes.

And here is a link to an excellent article on how singing to children helps develop language skills. So sing, sing, sing through your days! (Even if you think you can’t.)

I hope you’ll be inspired to incorporate some of these into your days with children.

Good Morning Song

Good morning, dear earth
Good morning, dear sun
Good morning, dear resting stones
And beasts on the run
Good morning, dear flowers
And birds in the trees
Good morning to you, good morning to me!

Clean Up Time

Tick-tock goes the clock
What does it have to say?
Time for us to pick up our toys
and put them all away

(Can be repeated until all the toys are picked up and the room is tidy.)

Folding Laundry

Corner to corner
Meet and greet
Fold our cloth so nice and neat!

(As above, can be repeated until laundry is done.)

Meal Time

Blessings on the blossoms
Blessings on the roots
Blessings on the leaves and stems
Blessings on the fruit

(I always sang this twice with gestures.)

Good-Bye Song

Dear friends, goodbye
Dear friends, goodbye
Now is the time of day
When we all go our way
Dear friends, goodbye
Dear friends, goodbye
Go well and safely
Go well and safely
Go well and safely
Our love be ever with you

Thanks to all of you who shared your favorite verses, blessings, and prayers for children, many of which I’d never heard before. All were delightful. Please keep posting and sharing!

March 16, 2014 by Sarah Baldwin

Family, Giveaway, Homemaking

Green Your Laundry + A Giveaway!

Have you ever put wool felt balls in your dryer?

No? Well then today I’d like to introduce you to my friend Cyndi Prince.

Cyndi and I have a lot in common—we live in the same community in midcoast Maine, and we are both mothers and business owners aiming to provide healthy, natural, and chemical-free products for children and families.

Cyndi is the founder of a great company called LooHoo that produces wool felt dryer balls here in Maine. She formed the business shortly after the birth of her son, having learned about the harmful effects of the chemicals in dryer sheets and fabric softeners.

Wool dryer balls are a natural alternative that soften clothes safely and really speed up the drying time of large loads of laundry, including cloth diapers. Cyndi has produced her dryer balls in a beautiful variety of hues that brighten up the task of doing laundry and make it more fun!

The inspiration to create LooHoo grew out of Cyndi’s creative passions (she is also a photographer), and her desire to create a consistently high quality wool dryer ball from local resources, durable enough to last for hundreds of loads.

While I love to hang my clothes on the line, it’s hard to do during the long Maine winters. That’s when I rely on my dryer more. I started out using three LooHoo balls a couple of years ago, and now have six in my dryer. I can attest that they really do speed up drying time, which in turn cuts down on our electric bill and reduces our carbon footprint.

Being the fan that I am of LooHoo, I was delighted when Cyndi generously offered to give away a Deluxe Starter 3-Pack to three readers of Moon Child!

For today’s giveaway, LooHoo is pleased to offer the following gift to THREE winners:

A Deluxe Starter 3-Pack of LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls

The set comes in an attractive box, making it a perfect gift for a green mama. (LooHoo felt balls are also fun toys and great for juggling!)

Each prize (a $27.99 value) includes free shipping within the 48 contiguous United States. The giveaway is open to all readers, but a winner outside the continental U.S. will be responsible for the cost of shipping.

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post letting me know what you think of this product. For additional entries, share on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or on your own blog, and leave a separate comment for each action taken.

Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. PDT on Saturday, November 30. Three winners will be chosen by Random Number Generator and announced on Sunday morning, December 1.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In addition, Cyndi would like to offer Moon Child readers 20% off their first purchase at loo-hoo.com through December 1, 2013. To receive the discount, enter the code BellaLuna20 into the discount code field at checkout. Thank you, Cyndi!

Leave your comment here to enter and let me know what you think!

Comments are now closed. Many thanks to all who entered.

Here are our three winners, chosen by Random Number Generator:

#1 ANANDAH, who wrote: “I would love to try these balls. I recently felted an 8 eight inch ball with a felting needle. The ball was the head of a millet baby I made for my son’s Waldorf school. The first millet baby I’ve ever made!”

#2 MELISSA, who wrote: “I’ve been wanting dryer balls for a long time and these look fantastic. The colors are also very calming.”

#3 THERESA, who wrote: “These seem great! Would love to try them.”

Congratulations! Cyndi will get your LooHoo Dryer Balls shipped right off to you. Hope you’ll report back and let us know what you think.

And don’t forget, the coupon code above is good at loohoo.com through the end of the day!

November 24, 2013 by Sarah Baldwin