The perfect cookie recipe to make with the kids.

Peanut Butter Blossoms!

This is another one of my kill three birds with one stone activity.

Unwrapping the kisses is great for fine motor skills. I counted the mixing by hand and ball-rolling as our sensory activity. And it was some yummy Christmas cookie making.

The number of ingredients are so small that no one will get bored or fidgety and you won't get frustrated. Learning to scoop the peanut butter into a measuring cup is good for their little hands to do, too.

So turn on some Christmas music and get baking!

Peanut Butter Blossoms
makes about 18 cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
18 chocolate kisses


Instructions:

1. Mix peanut butter, sugar*, and egg. Have child mix by hand. It's ooey, gooey, and so much fun!
2. Roll into balls and put on ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
4. While baking (or before you even make the dough) have your child unwrap the kisses. Immediately press them into cookies after removing from oven.
5. Enjoy!

*I like to make this recipe with 1/3 white sugar, 1/3 brown sugar, and 1/3 powdered sugar. Or 1/2 and 1/2 brown and white sugar. So, if you're making this with older kids you can thank me later for the built in lesson on fractions!

Cranberry Dough

I've decided to do a different sensory experience each week as part of our homeschooling. I'll probably get most of my ideas from pinterest and blogs, and I'll share and review them here.

Today we made Cranberry Dough. All it was is cranberry sauce and cornstarch mixed together. I added a little less cornstarch than the blog caleld for to make it kind of a mix between play dough and oobleck.

The kids loved it. They played with it for an hour and a half with the only interjection from me being, keep it at the table. They gathered cars to play in it and then Max kept adding other food like skittles and pickles. It smelled so good, and he kept trying to eat it.

Sensory play is great for kids and I just had to keep reminding myself that there is no wrong way to play with it. Even if that does mean adding pickles and skittles.