Jr. Chef Sponsored by Chef Boyardee

Hector Boiardi began selling his pasta in 1915 and almost 100 years later it's more popular than ever.

 

Chef Boyardee has many different varieties of pasta to choose from. With its great tasting pasta and easy preparation, Chef Boyardee is loved by both children and adults. One thing that you may not know about Chef Boyardee, is that there are many different meal ideas that can be prepared using their pasta products.

 

  

Today for our Jr. Chef event, we made both Ravioli Lasagna and Chef Pizza-roni Skillet.

 

After we washed our hands, we put on our Chef Boyardee aprons and we prepared to cook. The first recipe we made was Ravioli Lasagna.

 

  

Our Jr. Chefs and our Jr. helpers chopped our ingredients into just the right size. We put our first layer of ravioli into our dishes. We topped our ravioli with spinach, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese and Italian seasoning. We added our second layer of ravioli, mozzarella cheese, and Italian seasoning into our dishes. A lot of our younger chefs made up their own layers as they went along. We put our ravioli lasagna into our 425°F preheated oven for 10 minutes.

 

 

  

While our lasagna was cooking we made our Chef Pizza-roni Skillet. Instead of using a frying pan, we used a pot which made it easier to cook for our large group. Before adding anything into our pot, we made sure to spray it with Pam. Pam makes cleaning up a breeze, as it will prevent our food from sticking to our pot. In our pot we combined our Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, pepperoni, Italian seasoning, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and diced red & green peppers. We cooked this on our stovetop over medium heat until it was hot.

 

 

  

Our lasagna was ready by the time we finished combining our pizza-roni ingredients. It looked & smelled great!

 

  

It tasted just as yummy as it looked! This recipe was so quick and simple to make, not to mention this dish had the kids eating SPINACH! We will definitely be making this again.

 

  

Shortly after the Pizza-roni was hot and ready to eat! We put our Beefaroni mixture into whole wheat pitas and tortillas. Our Pizza-roni pockets were also very good, and really fun to eat. These were a big hit with our moms!

  

After our dinner was finished, everyone left with a great take away gift from Chef Boyardee! In addition to the fun aprons, everyone went home with some Chef Boyardee Ravioli, Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, some Pam and a recipe booklet with additional recipes to try at home.

 

The recipes that we used today and additional recipes can be found at http://www.chefboyardee.ca/en/recipes/default.html

 

Thank you so much Chef Boyardee for making Jr. Chef such a fun and successful event! We will be able to wear our special aprons at many events to come.

 

Jr. Chef is one of our 20+ monthly events and is included in your membership fee of only $45 per year.  Your membership also includes a one year subscription to Today's Parent!  To get in on the fun and meet some new moms, register here for a FREE 4 week trial membership!   http://niagara.momstown.ca/user/register

 

 

 

 

 

Music & Movement Sponsored by Kindermusik with Miss Alicia

It was an exciting day at our Music & Movement event. We were very fortunate to have Miss Alicia from Kindermusik come to sing with us at Creative Dance Company!
 
Kindermusik is a fun, educational and creative music and movement program for children aged 0-7 and their parents or caregivers. Kindermusik offers classes where children will learn the fundamentals of music including rhythm, melody, notation and an introduction to orchestral instruments. 

   

Miss Alicia begins her classes just as we do with circle time and an opening song. Today we had a large group of friends who were anxious to learn about Kindermusik, and also excited to sing together and to have the opportunity to play some instruments.

   

We had a lot of fun using our egg shakers and keeping a beat to the music! Miss Alicia has a large selection of both traditional and non traditional instruments that make many different and interesting sounds!

   

Even our youngest friends enjoyed shaking some jingle bells during our circle time.

 

  

After singing some songs and making some music, it was time to get active! We hopped like a bunny and walked around imitating a big bear. There were some pretty scary animal growls coming from our friends. 

 

  

Once our circle time was finished and we sang a closing song, it was time to make our own instruments. Today we made some noisy rattles. We filled our water bottle rattles with feathers, pom poms, macaroni, colored straws and sequins. This combination of materials provided a nice sound and looked good too. We decorated the outside of our bottles with paper and foam stickers! Our shakers sure made some different noises. Once the caps are glued on tight, these shakers are great for all ages.

 

What a fun and exciting day we had today. Thank you again to Miss Alicia for spending the day singing and moving with us and teaching us about Kindermusik.

 

Music & Movement is one of our 20+ events that we have each month. A momstown Niagara membership is only $45/year for the whole family and includes great events like these all year long! Your membership will also include a one year subscription to Today's Parent! Sign up for a free trial membership on our website:http://niagara.momstown.ca/user/register.

momstown Niagara: Music & Movement at Creative Dance Company

Today we held our Music & Movement event at Creative Dance Company. Creative Dance Company has recently moved to Haynes Avenue in St. Catharines, and they have a very large newly renovated studio that is great for us to sing and move about in!

We began our event with some circle time and a story. Our circle time provides us the opportunity to learn each others names, and to get to know each other a little bit better. During our circle time we like to sing, read stories, say poems and/or share different things with our friends. Today during our circle time we read The Night Before Kindergarten by Natasha Wing.

This was a great book for us to read with our friends. Some of our toddlers will be heading off to school next week for the first time, and they are no doubt feeling a little bit nervous or excited.

 

After our story we used our great singing voices to sing some songs together. We talked about different kinds of birds and the sounds that each bird makes.

Today as a special surprise, we set up a bird themed obstacle course. We were able to hop like a blue jay, soar like an eagle, stand on one leg like a flamingo, crawl through a tunnel (not really bird related but every obstacle course needs a tunnel), waddle like a penguin, cock a doodle doo like a rooster and hoot like an owl. It was a lot of fun!

  We had some parachute time .......

..... and made a craft. Today we used some recycled materials to make guitars! We used a Kleenex box, a paper towel roll, some elastics, construction paper, stickers, tape and glue. Once completed, our toddlers were able to make music by strumming the elastics on their guitars. Some even finished their solos by banging them off of the ground in true rock star fashion.

  Music & Movement is one of our 20+ events each month. A momstown Niagara membership is only $45/year for the whole family and includes great events like these all year long! Your membership will also include a one year subscription to Today's Parent! Sign up for a free trial membership on our website: http://niagara.momstown.ca/user/register. In addition to attending some of our 20+ events, you will be able to meet and bond with other moms that are just like you!

Little Scientists - Solid, Liquid, and Gas

It was a bright and sunny day at Pearson Park for our Little Scientists event. We used balloons to help us understand the differences between solids, liquids, and gases.

 

 

 

To be able to see and feel the differences, we filled our balloons with water and air. To show solids, we filled a blue balloon with water and froze it overnight. (because one of our 2 balloons broke, we had some ice cubes as well) In addition to being cold, our solid felt really hard. Our liquid was shown in a pink balloon filled with water, and it felt very squishy. Our gas was a yellow balloon that was filled with air. The slight wind that we had today caused our balloon to want to float away. 

 

 

 

 

Experiment 1 - Balloon in Bottle - Gas

Need: Balloon, 2L pop bottle, water, scissors

First we put our balloon inside the pop bottle, and stretched the opening over the mouth of the bottle. We wanted to see if we could blow up our balloon inside the bottle. We found that it was impossible to blow up the balloon. There was nowhere for the air to go because of the pressure inside the bottle, preventing our balloon from inflating. We took a pair of scissors and cut a little hole on the side of the bottle, near the bottom. When we attempted to blow up our balloon this time, we were successful! The air can easily flow out of the hole allowing the balloon to inflate. 

 

The second part of our experiment unfortunately didn't work. When you have your balloon blown up inside your bottle, if you put your finger on the hole, your balloon should stay blown up inside the bottle. If you use your finger to lock in the air pressure while your balloon is blown up, the next step is to fill the balloon up with water. When you release your finger from the hole, the water will shoot out like a geyser. We'll have to try this one again using a different bottle!

 

 

 

Experiment 2 - Balloon, Vinegar & Baking Soda - Solid Liquid Gas

 

Need: baking soda, vinegar, plastic bottle, balloon, 2 funnels

 

We used a funnel to fill our bottles 1/3 full of vinegar.  We then took a separate dry funnel to fill our balloons 1/2 way with baking soda. We covered the top of our bottles with our balloons, carefully preventing the baking soda from spilling into the bottle prematurely. When we were all ready, we lifted our balloons together and let the baking soda fall into the vinegar. As the mixture fizzed & bubbled, the gas that was produced by the baking soda and vinegar caused our balloons to inflate!

 

 

 

 

Experiment 3 - Water Beads - Solid Liquid

 

Need: water beads, bowl, vase, surprise sign/message.

This demonstration was more like magic than an experiment. Water beads are found in the floral department (ours were bought at Walmart). They originally look like little small little hard beads or pebbles. After being soaked in water for 4 hours (ours soaked overnight), they expand to full size resembling jelly like marbles. These fun little beads are invisible when they are left in water.

 

Together we looked at the original small beads and attempted to predict what they might need to grow. We predicted the water beads would grow larger if they were put into water. We added some water into our bowl holding the small beads and we waited. Nothing happened. I explained that they took quite a long time to grow. These are fun to watch at home because you can check them every hour and watch their growing stages.

I brought out a bowl of full size beads and let everyone feel them. I explained that these beads are magical and that they were hiding a picture message. I poured some water into our water beads that were covering our "special sign" to make it appear! The water beads when fully submerged disappear. Amazing!

 

 

 

Although we did have one experiment left, the water beads were so much fun that we spent the rest of our time together putting them in and out of water to make them disappear and reappear again. Definitely a big hit!

 

Little Scientists is one of our 20+ monthly events and is included in your membership fee of only $45 per year.  Your membership also includes a one year subscription to Today's Parent!  To get in on the fun register here for a FREE 4 week trial membership!  http://niagara.momstown.ca/user/register