Archive for July 2011
Parts by Tedd Arnold is so funny. Readers follow along as a 5 year old boy begins noticing things about his body he’d never noticed before like belly button lint, snot, peeling skin and more. His anxious assumptions about his body falling apart will have you in stitches. My 2 year old laughed and got most of the humor but slightly older children will be laughing hysterically at how silly the little boy’s worries are.
Germs Make Me Sick! (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) (Reading Rainbow book)
Is This My Nose?
Here Are My Hands
A Drop of Blood (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
Who said science can’t be yummy? Let your kids explore their senses with this blind taste and smell test using ice cream. Ice cream gets turned into a science experiment with this simple and oh so yummy experiment. Teaching about the five senses has always been one of my favorite themes and I guarantee your kids will love this science lesson too. I have also done this with plain yogurt and natural food flavoring if ice cream isn’t an option. You can use a blindfold if your child will tolerate it, my son doesn’t like them and a simple ” If you peak the activity is over.” was enough to keep his eyes glued shut during the experiment.
- Gather your materials. You will need multiple flavors of ice cream, a sheet of paper, markers, peel off labels, cups to conceal the ice cream containers and one or more spoons. These tiny single serve Hagen-Daz were perfect for this and the left overs weren’t too plentiful.
- Number your cups.
- Make a basic graph, you could make it on the computer and print it out but there is no need for perfection, just fun and learning.
- Write the flavor on the chart and cover with labels. Your child will peel these off after all the tests and predictions are recorded.
- Place the ice cream in the cups with the correct number. Can you tell I had a little pre taste test taste of some ? Can you blame me?
- Invite your child to begin the test. Explain why you want them to have their eyes closed, not just because you want to keep it a secret from them, but because when you aren’t using one sense the others work harder.
- Smell the first and make a prediction. My son inherited my accurate sniffer, he was like ” That is mango , I know it!”
- Taste.
- Repeat.
I was fascinated by his ability to recognize smell and taste as well as his honest aversion to peanut butter. Seriously who doesn’t love peanut butter? My kid. - Fill your graph in as you go.
- After all the tests – peel and reveal! He loved this part almost as much as tasting them. He was shocked that #2 was caramel not vanilla!
Choose your favorite to have as an after experiment snack! Chocolate won out at our house. 
Great 5 Senses Book!
Look, Listen, Taste, Touch, and Smell: Learning About Your Five Senses
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They don’t want to be rocked , cuddled or nursed all day long anymore. They try to jump out of your arms in stores and you are amazed by how much mess such a wee person can make! Your baby is exploring the world in whole new ways, on two feet, with more gusto and you aren’t so sure all those prayers for the newborn stage to end were well thought out. Activities with this age are short, but having a bunch of fun quick ones on hand will help keep your little one busy and having fun.
1. Pour some pasta.( or rice, or lentils, or quinoa.)
2. We love our water table , my daughter got this Step2 Sand & Water Table
3. Sing silly songs! I video taped her reaction to show you how much this age responds to music. She has been sticking out her tongue and grunting for a week as a way of asking for me to sing it again.
Um um! Went the little green frog one day,
Um um , went the little green frog.
Um um went the little green frog one day,
and they all went um um ahhh!But we all know frogs go ,
la di da di da,
la di da di da
la di da di da
We all know frogs go la di da di da,
They don’t go um um ah!!!
3. We love our water table , my daughter got this Step2 Water Table
4. Dig in the dirt.
5. Turn bath time into a pretend day at the beach by adding swim suits, sun glasses , pails and shovels.
6. Read. Gather a pile of books and let your toddler choose which books to read.
7. Make a Firetruck ( or other vehicle) for them out of a diaper box and play pretend.
8. Paint with bugs.
9.Make a drum and beat it!
Business travel and being separated because of military deployments are realities for so many families with young kids. While it’s true that kids are resilient they are still affected by the separation as are parents. Keeping a connection to the parent who is away for the child will keep bonds strong and your family happier. A great friend of mine Brandon travels a lot for work and a few weeks ago over dinner my husband ( who has been friends with him since before they had driver’s licenses) mentioned his Lego man pictures on Facebook page created just to stay connected. I giggled because I was just about to ask him if he’d seen them. The concept is super simple Brandon takes “Lego Man” a Lego mini figure with him on his trips and sends pictures back to his family, specifically for his 5 year old son .
Of course I immediately wanted to find out from Brandon all about Lego Man’s travels, as well as how to keep those ties to home strong even when there are multiple timezones between you and them. He graciously complied.
As a parent who travels often and not just to a neighboring town but across oceans and many time zones what is the hardest part about being away from your kids?
The most difficult part is just trying to stay connected to their everyday activities. When I’m at home, at dinner we typically discuss our days. I miss hearing the summary of their days as they often have hilarious interpretations of what they did that day. We try to use FaceTime everyday to stay connected, but time zone differences, their activities, and client commitments don’t always allow for very lengthy conversations. I also really miss participating in or attending events like their preschool plays that I know will be events to remember. At the end of the day, we do the best we can to try to keep communication as frequent as possible and keep me involved in their everyday life. Technology has come a long, long way in allowing people to stay connected and using Facebook to post Lego Man’s travelogue and using FaceTime to actually see each other are exceedingly helpful in maintaining a close relationship even when not physically together.
Who came up with the idea of Lego Man?
The idea for Lego Man was a spur of the moment thought when leaving on my last overseas trip. This was the first trip that J had a really hard time with me leaving. He was full on begging me not to go. He was trying to take my suitcase away, blocking the door, etc. It was the first time that my heart was truly breaking when I had to leave. He is typically a really resilient kid and it brought tears to my eyes knowing he was so upset. It made it even worse that he wasn’t throwing a fit, but was acting like I’d want him to act if he were upset about something. He was verbalizing his frustrations and telling me why it was important to him for me not to go. As I was giving him another hug and trying not to break down, I asked him to give me something to take with me so that it would be like he was traveling along with me. His eyes lit up and he went running into his room to grab something. He came back with Lego man and told me that I couldn’t take any of his policemen because he liked them too much, but I could take Lego Man. That made me laugh and I felt better knowing he still had his sense of humor even when he was upset. 
How have your kids reacted to Lego man ?
J has been the most interested in Lego Man. C and H are a bit too young to comprehend, but I think they will appreciate it as they get older. J has really enjoyed the more comical pictures such as Lego Man eating the apple muffin in Copenhagen. He also enjoys seeing the places where I work as he knows I’m away for business and has a big interest in what I do. I tried to convince J that Lego Man went out on the town when I was at work, but he kept insisting that Lego Man couldn’t do that because he wasn’t real. It was fun to watch him try and figure out if I was being serious or kidding with him.
How does it keep you connected to home by having a little physical piece of them with you?
I like knowing the J and Mom share time together going through the pictures online. Especially with time zone differences, knowing they are sitting together reading the captions and talking about what Lego Man and Dad are doing gives me a small bit of a connection to home. It also gives J and I something to discuss when we FaceTime. I love seeing his face light up when he recalls something about the pictures that he found interesting or funny. The other component is that I keep Lego Man in my pocket at all times because I never know when a good “photo op” may come up. Knowing that a small part of J is with me gives me another bit of a connection to home when I’m away.
Do you have extra lego men with you in case of mishap?
I don’t, but that is a great idea! Lego Man has a hat that seems to come off quite frequently so that may be the first casualty. I came across a Lego Store in Copenhagen and wanted to go and get a picture with Lego Man in his “homeland”, but ended up not having an opportunity. That would have been a great opportunity to pick up an extra without J knowing!
You can follow J’s Lego Man’s Travels on Facebook too!
How do you stay connected while away? Leave a comment and share!
Taking your kids to Paris, London or Pisa might not be in the budget but you can turn their building blocks into the city’s most famous landmarks. What a great way to introduce learning about far away places by using your kid’s own blocks. This was so simple and can be redone with so many different themes like these animal ones ,or faces you don’t even need a printer if you want to hand draw the pictures. My son didn’t participate in making the blocks ( I think he gets enough crafts, what do you think?) but from toddler to school age kids can color or draw the buildings too.
- Gather your materials. You will need some building blocks. Any will do but here is my opinion- we used Fisher-Price Little People Builders Blocks
, they are big, snap together but not too tightly. They let me be sorta sloppy with the contact paper. If there was some bunched up I could still snap them together. Duplo is less forgiving so you will need to only get contact paper on the side none on the top where the blocks come together. Wood blocks would work well but might frustrate younger ones who want them to stay together. You will also need pictures of whatever buildings you want to use, scissors, contact paper and clear tape.
- Start by laying out what blocks you will need for each building.
- Now here I did it two ways. I first cut the image into the pieces for the blocks
, then cut the contact paper and put it on.
It was tedious.
- The other way was to use one large piece of contact paper place the image on it face down, lay the blocks on it, make snips where you need to cut.
- Cut and apply to the blocks. This worked WAY better. I am not the most patient or careful because my window for doing anything without kids interrupting is tiny these days but as you can see even not too careful turned out great.
- Put them together!
- Time to play – he may not have participated in the making but he sure did with the playing.
- It’s mega-landmark!
