CRUNCHY HONEY MUSTARD CHICKEN TENDERS

I had thawed some chicken yesterday and then didn't end up using it, so I needed something quick and easy to make tonight that used chicken breasts. This recipe fit the bill perfectly. I will definitely be making it again!

Ingredients:

1 package uncooked boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 1 ¾ pounds)

½ to ¾ cup honey mustard

1/8 tsp table salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

4 Tbsp butter (or more if you’d like)

2 cups (approx.) crushed cornflake crumbs

Directions:

1. Cut chicken into strips (or at least cut into smaller pieces).

2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3. Put honey mustard dressing in one container and the crushed corn flakes in another.

4. Dip the chicken in the dressing and then in the corn flakes.

5. Place your coated chicken into a baking dish that has been sprayed with cooking spray.

6. Melt about 4 Tablespoons of butter and drizzle it over the chicken before baking.

7. Bake the chicken in a preheated 425 F oven for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle.

8. Serve with honey mustard as a dip if desired.

TOT SCHOOL: DR. SEUSS

We had so much fun celebrating Dr. Seuss the last two weeks. We read a lot of his books, but our activities focused mainly on "The Cat in the Hat," "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," and "Green Eggs and Ham." We worked a lot on rhyming and word families. In the above picture, Punkin was using this printout to make different -at words by sliding the letter strip through the hat. Then, once she read the word to me, she wrote the beginning letter on the hat page from HERE. Then we read through all the words again and talked about how they rhymed and what that meant.

I got this rhyming page from Fun in First Grade. I had to read her the words, obviously, but she caught on quickly.Position Words: Punkin glued the hats on the page according to where the position word stated. This came from Living Life Intentionally.Cat in the Hat Memory GameColor By Letter to make the Cat's hat

Spin a Sound Graphing: Punkin spun the spinner and then found the beginning sound on her graph and practiced writing the letter instead of just coloring in the box.She had fun, and she got great practice at writing letters.We made a hat to wear throughout the week.

Tissue Paper HatI found this ADORABLE handprint Thing 2 idea from Little Warriors. Isn't it just the cutest?

CAT IN THE HAT SNACKSStrawberries and smashed marshmallows on a crackerStrawberry and Banana Cat in the Hat popI got this idea from Fancy Frugal Life.Cat in the Hat parfait made from strawberry jello and cool whip.

ONE FISH TWO FISH RED FISH BLUE FISHFish graphing printed from Oopsey Daisy.Then, we used this graph data page to record the information from her graph.It was her first exposure to tally marks, and she did a great job writing her numbers.Fish Tracing and Counting from Living Life IntentionallyI made this fish addition activity for Punkin. She rolled a dice and put that many red fish in the bowl and wrote that number on her page. Then, she rolled it again and put that many blue fish in the bowl and wrote that number. She counted all the fish together and wrote that number down. Then, we "read" the math problem together.I was going to have her make painted handprints, but I got lazy and we just cut them out of paper.

Tissue Paper SuncatchersBlue jello and red gummy fish. I got this idea from Simple Girl.Punkin went "fishing" for goldfish with celery and peanut butter. This idea came from Adventures of the Smith Family.

GREEN EGGS AND HAM

Read, Stamp, Write from Living Life Intentionally. Our letter stamps don't show up very well, so since Punkin is really into stickers, I pulled out my letter stickers and had her find the letters she needed to spell the words. I was also so proud of how well she did writing the words!

Playing Pin the Yolk on the Eggs.She really had a hard time with the fact that she couldn't look and put the yolks in the middle. :) I think she may turn out to be a bit of a perfectionist like her mama!Green Eggs and Ham snack: pretzels, melted white chocolate, and green M&M's. This idea has been all over Pinterest.We made green eggs for breakfast one day.Our Muffin Tin Monday meal was a representation of a few different stories. A foot PBJ sandwich (The Foot Book), green scrambled eggs (Green Eggs and Ham), pink ink milk (The Cat in the Hat Comes Back), goldfish crackers (One Fish, Two Fish), mini hat snacks (The Cat in the Hat), and a pink sucker to represent the clovers in Horton Hears a Who.

MISC.

Punkin really loves to write and to use dry erase markers. Therefore, she really enjoys picking a letter in her notebook to practice writing each day.

She often helps me make her lunch, especially PBJ sandwiches.She found this styrofaom blocks from a package I got in the mail, and she was using them as her "skates" one night.And she loves ..... adores.... playing with Firecracker.

There were so many fun ideas floating around on Pinterest, but we have to move on....

I have linked up to Tot School and Preschool Corner.

CHOCOLATE CHIP PEANUT BUTTER COOKIE DOUGH DIP

Woah! Want something to satisfy that sweet tooth without ruining your diet? Here it is, folks! This cookie dough dip is wonderful, addicting, and won't pack on the pounds. It's another goodie from Chocolate Covered Katie.

Punkin and I made it together yesterday, and we ended up just eating it ...ummm....from the bowl with spoons! Oops! No dipping for us....just straight from the bowl, baby! :) I even ate it for my breakfast this morning. Okay, no judging, people. It does have oatmeal in it! :) Now, it does have a very odd main ingredient in it that you just don't want to mention to anyone you are serving it to. They'll never know the difference if you don't tell them. My husband got into it when he got home from work yesterday. I asked him how he liked it, and he agreed it was very yummy. But he said, "Why in the world would you make a big bowl of cookie dough just to eat? Especially when you are trying NOT to eat that kind of stuff right now!" I just grinned and said, "Because I CAN! It's healthy!" He kinda raised his eyebrow like, "Yeah, right." Then I told him what was in it and he said, " And I ATE that?" Ha! :)

Here's how I did it:

• 1 can chickpeas (drained)
• 1/8 tsp plus 1/16 tsp salt
• tiny bit over 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 2 T milk
• 2/3 cups brown sugar
• 3 T oats
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips

Add all ingredients (except for chocolate chips) to a good food processor (not blender), and blend until very smooth. Then mix in the chocolate chips.

Delicious! I'm going to make some more this weekend! She also has a complete sugar free recipe for this dip HERE, but I didn't have any pitted dates on hand, and it does take 8 hours of soaking the dates first.

SHAMROCK MATCH AND BUILD

I created this activity for Punkin to do during our St. Patrick's Day theme in a couple weeks, so I thought I'd share it for anyone else who may be interested in using it! You can download the activity HERE.

It's pretty simple. Cut apart the shamrock cards and the hearts. Have your child choose a shamrock card.

Then, use the hearts to reproduce the shamrock on her own blank shamrock mat.

Enjoy!

TOT SCHOOL: VALENTINE'S DAY

We had so much fun with our Valentine's Day activities these last couple weeks.

Tonging poms and stones into a heart tray.
Cutting strips of red and pink paper.

Playing with magnetic hearts.

Using candy heart stickers to fill in the hearts on this page.

Picking out pink and red paper clips.

Beginning Letter Sound Clip Cards from Over the Big Moon.

Valentine Memory Game from Over the Big Moon.

Candy Heart Patterning from Prekinders

Candy Heart Graphing from 2 Teaching Mommies

Color, Count, Record: I laid out the colors for Punkin and told her to just color the hearts whatever colors she wanted. She decided to color all hearts in a line the same color. Then, we counted how many of each color and I helped her write the numbers in the correct boxes...

which ended up being 4 for all but white. :)

Roll and Cover from 2 Teaching Mommies. This is the first time she has actually really understood the concept of taking turns and seeing it through to the end instead of just wanting to cover them up on her own.

Color by Number from Homeschool Creations

Valentine Mailbox Addition - I only set out mailboxes with 5, 6, and 7 and envelopes that added up to one of those numbers. Punkin picked an envelope and set out pink hearts for the first number on the envelope and red hearts for the second number. Then, she counted all the hearts together and put the envelope "in" the correct mailbox.

Sight Word Smack ABC Maze: Help the turtle mail his valentine by connecting the letters in abc order.

Which One is Different? from Over the Big Moon

I said a word and then Punkin used candy hearts to cover the letter that the word started with. This printout came from Musings of Me.

Hershey Kiss Hunt: We had so much fun with this activity. I hid the kisses around the living room and Punkin used her little heart basket to find them. Then, she looked on the bottom of the kiss and read the word to me, then found the matching word on the plate.

She loves any kind of "treasure hunt" as she calls them.

This could be done with so many concepts: matching colors, addition problems, numbers and number words, capital and lowercase letter matching, etc.

Scissor Cutting Practice

Heart Cutting

Heart Measuring: She used candy hearts to measure the lines on each heart and then recorded how "long" each line was on the correct colored heart.

Sight Word Sentences: I made sentences from sight words that she knows and put one word in each heart. She read the sentences to me, putting a candy heart over each word as she read it.

Chocolate Candy Addition from Homeschool Creations

Sight Word Spelling: Punkin opened each heart and put the letters in order to spell the sight word that was on the outside of the heart. Then, she read the word to me and I helped her write the word in one of the hearts on the page.

Add or Subtract Roll and Cover: We took turns rolling the dice and the +/- dice to see how many candy hearts we would either add to the heart or take off of the heart.

Stacking candy hearts and "building" things with them.

She sat for a long time just lining them up and making all sorts of things with the candy hearts.

One day she got out her foam hearts and started making patterns with them all on her own!

I saw the idea for Balloon Tennis at Leading Little Hearts to HIM and decided to make a Valentine's Day version of it!

Punkin LOVED playing balloon tennis! It was a fun activity to do with Daddy while Mommy fed Firecracker one evening.

Arts and Crafts

Using colored glue to make heart suncatchers. I just added some food coloring to a half empty bottle of glue and shook it really well. Then, I taped cookie cutters to a piece of wax paper and let her squeeze the colored glue into them.

Ours took about 2 full days to completely dry, and I thought they were not going to turn out at all. But in the end, they turned out pretty well!

We made tie dye hearts. I folded a coffee filter as described HERE and then had Punkin use her dot markers to decorate them. (You have to really press hard and even turn them over and do the other side as well so that the color soaks through all the layers of the coffee filter.)

Here's how they turned out.

Button Heart

Tissue Paper Heart

Symmetrical Hearts: We painted one side of each heart, then folded them over. Punkin had a hard time understanding why she could only paint one side. She wanted to paint the whole thing!

Some"buggy" Loves You Valentine for Daddy. I can't remember where I saw this idea!

Fun with Food

Muffin Tin Monday: heart shaped cheese, strawberries cut like hearts, red applesauce with heart sprinkles, heart jello jiggler, pink milk, pepperoni cut in the shape of hearts

Pink Milk with the rim of the cup dipped in red frosting, then heart sprinkles. We did this more than once for lunch!

Heart Shaped Pancakes

I Love You PBJ sandwiches

I cut out a heart from the middle of a piece of bread, then cut out a heart shaped piece of cheese and put it in the middle.

I attempted to make these hot dog hearts from Family Fun. However, I realized that I didn't have any hot dogs, so I used a cheese stick instead.

Heart Waffles

Heart Shaped Hard Boiled Eggs: I used THIS technique.

Valentine's Day Egg in a Basket (This picture was taken before it was totally cooked all the way.)

We love smoothies here at our house, so on Valentine's Day, we made a pink berry smoothie with raspberries and strawberries.

Cupid's Arrow: I think I got this from a Family Fun magazine

Heart shaped cookie bars with Valentine M&M's

Marshmallow Pops - Punkin did these all by herself (aside from melting the white chocolate and adding the food coloring). She stuck the stick into the marshmallows, dipped them in the melted chocolate, and then dipped them in sprinkles. She was so proud of her treats!

I made rice krispie treats using pink heart marshmallows (so I didn't even have to add any food coloring). I pressed heart sprinkles on the top while they were still warm, and then, when they were cooled, I cut heart shapes with a cookie cutter and added sticks to make Rice Krispie Pops.

We used leftover candy canes from Christmas to make these Heart Pops for Punkin's Cousins.

I found this idea for Cake Batter Puppy Chow HERE, and decided to try it for a party I was going to. Punkin helped me make it, and then we "taste tested" plenty of it before the party! :) It is totally addicting. Once you start, you can't stop!

Punkin helped me make heart shaped pita pizzas for dinner one day. Yummy!

I found this idea at Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons.

Misc. Fun

Punkin woke up on Valentine's Day to find a pink crepe paper "road" leading from her door to her gift.

She followed the "road" all over the upstairs of our house, and giggled all the way!

After our Hershey Kiss Hunt, Punkin later took her heart stickers that she got in her Valentine Bag and "hid" them around the kitchen for ME to find! :)

And of course, we had to get out our Veggie Tale movie about love.

Punkin is now into "big girl" puzzles and enjoys doing them while I fix lunch.

Making "castles" with her blocks.

I've really been impressed lately with her drawings. She especially loves drawing "princesses."

Punkin is really into "copying" real life experiences in her play. She just went to the dentist for the first time, and now plays "dentist" at home all the time, saying and doing things the nurse and doctor did. Here, she said she was making her "menu" one day. She even crossed off her things like I do once we have had that meal. :)

We made a fort one day, and Punkin spent a lot of time in her new "house."

Next week, we will start 2 weeks of Dr. Suess activities in honor of Dr. Suess' birthday on March 2. I am looking forward to it!

I have linked up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.