Free Choice Friday

I've heard that the more choices you give a child, the more likely he'll listen, when you ask him to do things. Its from a book called Love and Logic

Often times dinner is a fight for my kids, especially when I try something new, or when something I make has too many veggies!

So, Friday night is my new "free choice for dinner night" I'm sure many of you do this already, but I just thought about doing it last week. Basically, everyone gets to eat whatever they want! ... From, chicken nuggets to yogurt, to cereal, whatever they choose!

I love it, it means I don't have to create another completely crowd pleasing dinner!

And hopefully, they'll be more likely to EAT during the week!

The Library

Do you take your kids to the library? We do! Every week!

My kids love going there, being in a large city we have tons of locations to choose from. Each library has a huge, beautiful kids area, with little chairs and little computers, that are easy for the kids to use.

Check the Internet because most libraries in any town offer toddler story times with songs, finger plays, and darling little books. My little one was just singing one of the songs while she was waking up this morning!

The best part is that we come home with new books every week. I love that I don't have to spend the money on new books, and yet we get to have new book adventures every time we come home!

The story time is also a great opportunity to teach your child to sit still and listen to an adult, you know, getting them ready for those school days in a few years!

Flash Cards

Flash cards are great to build vocabulary in toddlers as well as learning colors and shapes. This is the first time I've worked with Chloe on these cards. I tried 2 things:

First, I layed out 3 cards and asked her what they were, I could either ask : Chloe where's the picture of the fish, or I could point to one and ask whats this? (don't have a pic of us doing this activity)

Next, I got 2 cards that labeled just colors, then found 2 other cards that had that color. We then began a "talk and question" conversation about those colors. I talked about the colors, then I asked her to match the colors together. She didn't get it right at first, but after a few times, she'll pick it up. Pictured:

We of course, sang the clean-up song when we were done, and oh yes, I made sure she helped!

I got my cards at the Lakeshore Learning Center (which is pretty pricey sometimes). I got them with the intent to teach colors and shapes. They have lots of different kinds to teach whatever you choose. Target had some great ones this year around September that I got for $1 a box. So, next fall pick some up! My kids love them, and I enjoy watching them learn!

Colored Bubbles

She did this in preschool. They mixed a little food coloring with bubbles, then let them blow them onto the paper! When they dried, it looked like this. I thought this was fun, because I always have bubbles and I always have food coloring! I thought it would be fun to make a few different colors and make a colorful Thanksgiving Turkey, or a green Christmas tree, or a colorful easter egg, or a...you get the point.

Summer's Over!

Well, we've been so busy this summer and (where we live) its still warm outside so, we're able to still head outside! Yesterday,it was dark and loomy and I suddenly found myself with some bored kids. I pulled out some arts and crafts and that was OK for a while. But, this morning I woke up and realized that I needed to get my tush in gear and get some activities going for my girls, so that I don't have another day like that.

I think I'm going to make a weekly plan. Hopefully.

I wanted to post this though, its something I found in Parents magazine. I thought it was a great idea for chores around the house, you could also add simple dailly activities to it too. Like : Preschool, library, store. dr. appt, playdate, park, etc. Its just a binder, with premade cards, then you hotglue some ribbon across the bottom two sides of the binder to make the binder stand up like that!

Because seriously, my daughter asks me EVERY MORNING " Where are we going today" or "What are we doing today" when I answer, she says, then where are we going after that?? t would be nice to say... go refer to the chart!

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??