Recipe: Cinnamon Clay (for crafts, not eating!)

An easy activity for almost any child to do, and one that will make your house smell great, is cinnamon clay. Use it as you would any other clay, or roll it to 1/4 of an inch thickness and cut shapes with cookie cutters. Use a straw to punch out a hole if you'd like to hang them with string when finished. If the dough seems a little sticky, dust your hands and work surface with some more cinnamon. These will need to lay out on a baking sheet and be turned once a day for a few days to completely dry out. Or you can put them in the oven at 250 degrees (still turning over every now and then) until dry and hard.

1 cup Cinnamon
3/4 cup Applesauce
1 Tablespoon white glue

Put all ingredients into a ziploc bag and squish until thoroughly combined. Let it sit at room temperature for a half hour before using. Try adding other spices into it too, such as cloves or nutmeg.

** Hint - you can find big containers of cinnamon at your local grocery store. We used a container that had 1 cup of cinnamon for .99. Don't buy the expensive stuff for crafts!

A Better Way to Cough and Sneeze

Doctors now advise parents to teach children to cough and sneeze into their elbow. "Cover your mouth" used to be the advice, but people don't wash their hands as much as in the old days, so this is the better way, especially for children who then touch many things other children touch.