Helping in the kitchen

Do you remember how cool you used to think it was to help in the kitchen?

no?  You're getting old, then!

Kids LOVE to help with everyday chores like preparing food.  My girls are in HEAVEN, seriously, when I let them help me.

As an example, today we made granola.

Together they mixed EVERYTHING!

 I talked the entire time about ingredients and using a recipe and "cups", etc.  We even sounded out the word "c-u-p" with Charlotte and showed her where it showed 1 cup on the measuring cup.

Before we put in each ingredient, the girls got to taste test 

(of course not all ingredients in every recipe can be taste tested, but many can!)

Pepitas were their favorite ingredient today :)

...and more stirring

We baked the granola, and then, the most important part -

They got to EAT some fresh out of the oven...YUM!

If you have picky eaters, letting them help prepare their food really helps!

My girls have begun eating things from growing them or simply chopping them.  It's kind of amazing :)

Granola & homemade yogurt with blueberries - DElish!

Letting your kiddos help in the kitchen of course takes additional time, but it REALLY helps the time go more pleasantly for all involved :)  If you work full time, maybe only let them help on weekends?

The possibilities are endless.  My girls "compile" lasagna for me, stir, chop, sprinkle, etc

Some moms are really funny about their kids and knives.  Honestly, both of my girls have had "baby" gerber knives since they were about 18 months.  They can chop a ton of things with those little things.  My girls have their own chopping boards.  Of course they can't chop really hard things, but fruit, etc are really easy things for them to help with!

Tonight, Charlotte chopped pre-cooked chicken for dinner!

Snail Mail

The thing about having worked in an elementary school is seeing truly how many things some kiddos don't have any background knowledge about.  We both know how it happens.  Life gets busy and we forget to share with our kids little things we know about something.  

Oops - happens to the best of us!

Snail mail is just one of those things that is rather easy to make time for.

If you live far away from anybody, Grandma, a friend, etc send them things!

This is easy for us because all of our grandparents live in other states, so mailing little things like coloring pages is easy to do an always appreciated :)

The artwork of my 4 year old

The artwork of my 2 1/2 year old

My artwork - you're welcome Mom! ;)

Anytime you can allow your kids to take part in any part of normal life, they are totally excited.  They LOVE the sticky part of sealing envelopes!

Explain to them how we write the person's NAME and how we have to write where they live with an ADDRESS.  Let them help you put the STAMPS in the top right corner.  We even have a RETURN ADDRESS "stamp" and that makes the whole thing even more fun!

Let them decorate the back with stamps & stickers

 Don't forget the most important part!  Walk them to the mailbox or drive them to the post office.  Let them drop in the mail!  Ask them who is going to pick it up and make sure they know how it's going to get to Grandma :)

Ta da!  Happy Grandparents (or friends) and knowledgable kiddos!

What more could we ask for?

ABC book DIY

I already rambled on during another post about how awesome it is for kids to create their own books. 

Adelyn has been learning her alphabet.  In particular, making an ABC book can be a huge real life connection to the alphabet.  The first time I made one with Charlotte, I "winged it" one letter at a time.  For my 2nd, I got smarter :)

First, the materials I bought/grabbed were:

• Letter stickers (200 pack) - $1 @ dollar tree
• Poster letter pack (78 pack - $1 @ dollar tree
• 26 ziplock bags
• As many stickers as you have in your house :)
• Printed pictures of important people/characters in your kids life (A-Z)
• Some like q you can just use whatever you can think of like "queen"
• Elmers glue
• 1 piece of cardstock or construction paper (for a cover)
• 14 pieces of printer paper

First, before you start making the book, setting yourself up for success by making a "grab bag" for each letter will REALLY save time!  I actually made two sets of grab bags at once and gave one to my niece.

Pack of little "sticker" capital letters

The package the bigger letters came in

Ok - lay out 26 sandwhich sized ziplock bags and use a sharpie or pen to write the letter on the outside of each bag.  Then, distribute the poster letters and sticker letters so they are on top of their corresponding bag.

Here they are sprawled across my counter (I have helpers :)

See?

 Then, put any stickers that might correspond to that letter on top too. I'm not sure about you, but we have a MASS of stickers in my home, so this was quite easy. Add the printed picture of the important people.  Then put all of the stuff in each bag.

Make the book by folding a piece of card stock and 14 pieces of printer paper on the inside.  Staple 3 times on the crease to bind it and you're done!  Don't forget to add a title and your child's name to make it their own.

For T we found tinkerbell, train, tire

This is our "A" page with Adelyn & her cousin Autumn's picture

"B" has boots the monkey and backpack (crucial people in our lives ;)

Our C page has a picture of our sister and stickers of cars

D page has our cousin Drew, Daddy, Dora, Diego & dinosaurs!

E has Elmo & Easter eggs

F has a fairy, Flounder the fish, frog, football, etc

For my 2 1/2 year old we do one page in our ABC book each week, although you could go faster or slower depending on the age of your kiddo.  We also do a scavenger hunt (as described in the post about the letter E) after we make our page.  Needless to say, we "read" the book regularly and honestly, the excitement is MUCH higher than any other ABC book we've ever owned or borrowed from the library.

She is highly invested.

All of her important people are here :)

Today is brought to you by the letter E

Teaching your kids their letters is both easy and FUN!

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

I love making abc books with my kids (see other post) but every time we add a new letter to our alphabet book, we do other things to reinforce that new letter.

Before vacation, we had gotten up to the letter "F"

However, Adelyn seems to call both E and F "F" so today we decided to go back and reinforce the letter E before we learned any new letters.

Our favorite activity is the scavenger hunt.  Get a sharpie and your child and work your way around your kitchen, writing on any "E" they can find (capital or lowercase).

Adelyn found an E on her vitamin container

 The cool thing is that although your kids might be different ages, they can all do something.  While Adelyn and I scavenger hunted, Charlotte practiced writing, a skill that is completely appropriate for her age!  Also, she isn't giving away all of the answers to Adelyn :)

Charlotte is busy writing E

Adelyn decided she needed to do the writing

 Never ever did I let Charlotte write on the boxes herself when she was learning letters, but your 2nd child thinks they are capable of doing anything and, well, it wasn't half bad writing for a 2 1/2 year old.

We've never tried writing, but obviously we should!

 If you didn't know, Vis-a-Vis pens are erasable with a wet paper towel.  They are what our teachers used to use on overhead projectors.  They are great for writing on the fridge to help remember and practice in a really central place in your home.  Then, when company is coming over, you can erase :)

Of course Charlotte finished writing and joined!

This morning we had been stringing chocolate cheerio necklaces, so we decided to write the letter E with cheerios.  I didn't realize how much fine motor coordination this took, so it's a fabulous one to do!

This is Charlotte's E

To layer in support, I wrote an E on the board and Adelyn "covered" it

Another one of our favorite things to do is "stamp" playdough with letter cookie cutters.  This is fun and again, functional for more than one age.  Charlotte us busy making words while Adelyn just punches the letters she knows!

Calendar Time - coins and more!

So, it's been months since I first posted about using "calendar time" in your home with your toddler or preschoolers.  Our calendar has changed a lot over that time, so I thought I would share what we've added to calendar time over the last few months.

First, I started printing (on card stock) pictures for repetitive events in our life (ballet, gymnastics, bible study, "daddy-nights" (i.e.: when Mommy goes to work), etc.  This really helps my kiddos know when their favorite activity is coming and how many days until it will be here!

Also, in addition to just counting "things" for each day of the month, we've started counting coins. So, today is the 21st so we counted out 21 pennies (more to be explained below).

Lastly, this month, we started patterning.  I bought some heart stickers at the Dollar Tree and the first couple of days this month I started putting in colored hearts in a pattern.  Each day, we figure out which color of heart should come next and add it into the little window for that day.

 We've been working on the coins and counting thing during calendar time for about 4 months now.  Each day of the month (when Mommy remembers) we count the number of coins for that day.

Today was the 21st so Charlotte found 21 pennies

After we count out 21 pennies, we see if we can "trade" any coins.  

From a little instruction about coins 4 months ago, we know the values of each coins.

We keep a "cheat sheet" set of window clings on our sliding glass door.

They were used heavily the first month, but almost never at this point

First, I always ask if we can "trade" for a quarter since it's the largest.  Pretty quickly, Charlotte knows if we have more than 25 pennies.  If we don't, she says no.  Then, I usually ask about dimes.  However, you could go in any order.  Today we traded 10 pennies for a dime (twice).

I traded her a dime and I got her 10 pennies 

Although I taught Charlotte the values of coins, the physical act of "trading" is a huge piece of math learning for kids.  Kids must go through many phases of understanding, but they always start learning math in a concrete way.  The physical habit of us trading coins reinforces that although a penny and a dime look similar (in fact a dime is smaller) its worth is greater.  This is a really abstract idea!

Especially when we first started this concept, we would try to trade as many different ways as we could.  If we were doing that, today we would have found all of these combinations:

21 cents =

21 pennies

2 dimes and 1 penny

1 dime, 2 nickels and 1 penny

4 nickels and 1 penny

Happy Coining!