muffin tin monday - cars!

Okay, it's Tuesday, and when I brought the muffin tin out for lunch, my kids could hardly stand it. "But it's not Monday!"


We did a very simple tin based on the book Cars! Cars! Cars! by Grace Maccarone. We are using it this week to learn about nouns, verbs, and adjectives.


We happened to have just the right things to make little cars....

"Beep, beep!"

The theme today was actually "All About Me," so if you want to see what others did for that, check 'em out here at Her Cup Overfloweth!

meatball monday

Today's theme for Muffin Tin Monday was "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs!" Now, we haven't read the book yet, and the one at the library was checked out, so all we could find was this youtube video of a daddy reading it for his little girl! The boys are just dying to see the movie, so hopefully we'll be getting out to do that soon.


Here's what we did before lunch. I got this idea from someone's blog, but I can't remember whose! It's so cute - yarn spaghetti with pom pom meatballs!

Alli liked it better up here. I guess if she wants to wear pasta, I will appreciate that it's this kind of pasta. :)

For our muffin tin lunch, we had spaghetti in foil "bowls." (Couldn't think of a more clever way to put spaghetti in muffin tins.) I topped each one with a coctail umbrella, just in case there were showers of more meatballs.

Then I let them pour on their own spaghetti sauce, which they never get to do, so they actually liked that.

For dessert, we microwaved marshmallow "clouds" and watched them puff up!

Then Spencer added some chocolate chips and we sandwiched them between Ritz crackers for some makeshift S'mores. NOT a clean Muffin Tin lunch, but very fun!

After lunch, we listened to a recording of On Top of Spaghetti, just to "top" it all off.

Oh, yeah. I'm so funny.

Happy Monday!

muffin tin monday - apples

I'm so glad today's theme was easy! I did my first wedding photo shoot this weekend, and today is such a catch-up day! But we DID have apples handy, so I was able to put together a muffin tin for a snack/lunch. For the apple dip, I just sprinkled peanut butter with chopped peanuts, and the kids loved it that way. Reece's Pieces in the popcorn got rave reviews - just shocking, isn't it?

I had to keep it simple today, but I don't think the kids noticed that - they just appreciate something different, something intentional, something a little more special than "everyday."

Next week's theme is based on the book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." If you'd like to participate, or check out the other amazing ideas for today, just click here!

muffin tin monday

I stumbled onto a website with the cutest idea for lunch! Muffin Tin Mondays, a themed lunch served up in a muffin tin. This week's theme was "circus," which was perfect for us because Nathan's Five in a Row book for the week is Mirette on the High Wire!


So here's what we had: animal crackers, grapes and cantaloupe balls for juggling, (shockingly, no one actually used them for juggling), salted peanuts, popcorn, and rope licorice for the tight rope.

Or the hoop for the tigers to jump through, take your pick.

All the kids liked this idea so much, especially when I played the circus song, Entry of the Gladiators. (No, I didn't know it was called that before today, but that is rather cool, since Spencer is still doing his lapbook on Ancient Rome.)

Huh. There were gladiators alright. Rather messy ones that took a liking to the peanuts.