PB & J Rollups

My friend made these for her daughters b-day party, and I always remembered them. Today I thought I'd be fun for my girls.

Directions:

Cut the crust off a piece of bread

Press the bread flat with a rolling pin

Spread the peanut butter & jelly on (you'll probably have a little jelly ooze out - yum for you!)

Roll the whole thing up

Cut like you're making a sushi roll or cinnamon rolls

(you could probably use any filling for these, tuna, meat & cheese, etc)

Now you have bite size little sandwich roll ups!

Enjoy!

Chore Chart

I've been meaning to do one forever!! I read somewhere that if you have really spirited children, charts work really well for them! I will probably change these as she grows, but this was my first attempt.

Ours is on our fridge. When she completes a row, she gets to ride the merry-go-round at the mall (75 cents) Its working good so far, we remind her about getting a sticker on her chart and she gets really excited, and does the things we would like her to.

What do you do with your kids??

oobleck

Do you remember this stuff from your 5th grade science class? Some kind of property makes it a liquid and a solid at the same time. As long as you apply pressure to it, its a solid, but the moment you let go it slithers through your fingers like a liquid.

All you do is mix cornstarch and water, (i just eye-balled it) and food coloring. Mix until thick and a little runny at the same time - sounds weird huh?? R played with this for almost an hour. I had to add a little more water to it during her play, because it dries out as its exposed to air. I put her outside, so that I could just hose the little table down (2$ at a garage sale by the way) when she was done.

Computer

I started R on computers when she was about 2 yrs old. Teaching her how to use the mouse took quite some time (especially because our mouse gets stuck all the time). I had do help her hand over hand for a long time, until she got the hang of it.

Her favorite website is pbskids.org

She loves Clifford games especially the scavenger hunt, and cliffords big parade

Depending on the age, you can try any of the games that are on here. R will try the Super Why games sometimes, but isn't too successful, but if you happen to have a "super smarty" or a child in preschool, give it a try. If you have a young one, sit her on your lap and go into Sesame Street or Barney and play them with her.

**Some of the games require use of the space bar. I put a little sticker on it, so that she can see it clearly. Imagine all those keys in the eyes of a 2 year old!

I think it is so important these days to teach computer skills to your child, especially because they will begin typing in very early grades and even get graded on their knowledge of computers! (I had to when I taught 1st grade) So get going now!

Makeshift sandbox

This past month, we moved out of our apartment and into a twin home. Which means we have a backyard!!!! This move has drastically improved our play time! Although we still pull out some of our same old tricks.

Here's one that is super easy!

Go to Walmart and get 2 large bins.

Fill one with water.

Fill one with sand.

Get some sand toys.

These were perfect for when we just had a balcony to play on (and they still work good in the backyard). The are compact and have a lid, so they can be moved out of the way easily, pulled out easily and stacked on top of each other. Not to mention they are much cheaper than regular sandboxes or water play toys, and create the same effect for the kids. Make sure to lay a blanket or towel down underneath...you know cuz they're kids.

School

Every time we drive by a school, R asks "Mommy, can I go to school?" I try to explain that she just isn't old enough, but one day! I asked her if she would like to do school with me, and she gave an exited YES!
So I better be a good Mom and do some "school" with my child.


I went to Barnes & Noble to look for some books, and as I was looking through them, I realized that I could make these myself, and gear them more towards what I want her to learn, and what I know she needs to learn to be prepared for kinder. I used to teach 1st grade, before I was an adored Mommy....anyways... I used to make a lot of my own worksheets then too.

I'm starting with 3 things:
Recognizing and writing her name
Recognizing and writing letters
One to one correspondence (which means they can count objects correctly, by touching each one and saying the number)

If there is time, I really like to end our school with reading her a couple of books.

Here is practicing her name, I write it first, say the letters out loud and have her repeat. Then do it again, one letter at a time, and have her copy it one letter at a time. **Draw a line, or else she will write it seriously anywhere she wants on the paper. Then I wrote all our families names and had her circle hers, and she knew it immediately. - YEA!

Today was A day. We practice writing A at the top, then she has to go find and circle the A's on the paper. * Helping her hand over hand when first writing is very helpful!

Give her a treat if she works well (and sometimes she won't) then put it up on the fridge so that she can look at it throughout the week - mostly when she's bored while you're trying to make dinner.

When I taught first Grade, one great piece of advice my principal gave me was that First Graders need to change activities every 15 minutes, because that was their attention threshold. R is 3 yrs, so imagine what her attention time is! This activity took about 5 minutes. With about 5 minutes of prep time (for me) to make the worksheet.

MInerva the Monster

We checked a listening story out at the library. The book was called "Minerva the Monster" It was a really cute book. In the book, Minerva made a monster face out of a paper plate, and went around scaring everyone. So, we decided to do it too. Poor little Chloe, cried and ran every time "Minerva the Monster"came near.

(Of course, I made her write her name on the back for practice)


Materials:

**If you wanted to, you could make it way cooler with glitter, pom-poms, and all sorts of more crafty stuff than I used

Paper Plate

Markers or crayons
Paper or cardboard for the ears

Ribbon to tie around childs head (elastic would be better, but I didn't have any)

...and off she goes a scarin'