Rainy Day Fun - Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes

Yesterday morning we woke up to rain.  As a mother all weather that prevents the kids from playing outside is a pain.  For some reason my children are not really good at playing inside.  They like to watch movies and play the wii but I have a hard time getting them to just play in their rooms.  They don't want to play by themselves but Dawson never wants to do what Emma wants and vice versa.  So when the weather keeps us inside I am always looking for things to keep the kiddos busy.  I got this idea from my sister as we were talking on the phone the other day.  My sister Meghan is looking into some fun classes to put my niece Abby into this fall/winter.  One of the classes sounded like a lot of fun.  In the class you read a book (that has a food in it) then you make the food and have a craft while the food is cooking.  I thought that this was a great idea!  How many books do we have around the house with food in it?  I took stock of our books and these are some of the titles that I found:

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Nurneroff

If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Nurneroff

Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes by Jane O'Conner

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett

Jamberry by Bruce Degen

Today we chose to read Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes.  I happened to have cake mix on hand so together we whipped up a batch of chocolate cupcakes.  I frosted the cupcakes and then let Dawson and Emma put some "fancy" sprinkles on.  The kids really enjoyed this time together and there was no fighting! 

Dawson had fun with this activity even though it was more of a "girl story" as he put it.

Cupcakes are always better with as much pink sprinkles as you can find.

These cupcakes are delectable!

I think that I am going to plan a bit more and have the ingredients for making jam on hand to go with the book Jamberry.  The kids could make labels to go on the jars as a craft too.  I know that the kids would love to help make spaghetti and meatballs sometime.  I found this hat craft that would fit in perfectly with the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  http://lessonplans.craftgossip.com/spaghetti-and-meatball-hat-craft/2009/10/02

Really the options are endless.  Which is great because living in Iowa means that you are going to have to deal with all kinds of weather.  I need to be able to keep the kids busy so that I don't end up going too crazy!