shake it up: happy new year's!

There's no time like the present to get rollin' on favors for tonight's big New Year's Eve Par-tay--at least that's what we thought this morning when we realized that we didn't have much, in the name of fun noise-makers, to take to our pals' house tonight.

And goodness knows that two adults and three kids isn't noise enough for a bash to ring in 2010.

So still in pj's, breakfast dishes still in the sink, we covered our table in newspapers, grabbed the tiny plastic containers I am notorious for keeping (these were from a few finger paint sets, I think), we gathered some beads, and my trusty glue gun. And in no time flat, we had noise-makers to take to our party.

• New Year's Noise-Makers: My friend, Christy, shared this simple but neat noise-maker a few days back, so when Maddy, Owen, Cora, and I talked about noise-makers we could quickly make, I knew we could do something like she did.
  

beads + beans + containers + glue = noise makers!

Really, these took minutes to make, and I think the kids will really love shakin' them around come their (9 o'clock) New Year's Celebration.

I put a handful of beads, beans, and (because everything is so much more fun when it's sparkly) sequins on a paper plate in front of Maddy, Owen, and Cora. Then I said,

Okay, my friends. We need some noise-makers to take to Ella and Annie's house tonight. And these might seem really tricky, but they're so simple to make.

All we're going to do is fill one plastic container with beans, beads, and sequins, then I'll hot glue the other container like this, and we'll have a shaker for New Year's! How fun?

So they filled.

And I glued.

I totally heart this tiny glue gun.

And then they picked a pretty ribbon to put along the seam, and I glued some more, and that was it!

Hopefully they'll stay glued through the shakin' and dancin' and singin' and hootin' and hollerin' the little ones will be doing tonight, but if not--thankfully--we'll have lots of tiny hands to pick up beads from the floor.

Happy, Happy New Year's to all of my friends!

happy holidays, backyard birds!

I've seen this milk carton bird feeder a million times in a million different places, but I never really thought about doing it here until today.

This afternoon, I had three antsy, didn't-want-to-be-stuck-inside kiddos and a loaf of stale bread. I mean really, really stale, thanks to me forgetting that we had it until I saw it today on the shelf.

So rather than throw the huge bowling ball loaf in the trash, I thought we could treat our backyard birds to a Happy Holidays feast. And we just happened to have an empty gallon of milk in the recycling bin that we could use to make our birds even happier.

• Happy Backyard Birds: I grabbed the loaf (thanks to Aunt Jenny bringing crazy amounts of bread to our Christmas lunch), and I pulled out directions for the milk jug bird feeder that I found a few months back.

Maddy, Owen, and Cora resumed their spots at the counter, like they do for any and all of our crazy-craft ideas, and I gave everyone a job: Owen and Cora ripped up one chunk of bread, and Maddy pulled the center out of the huge, stale loaf.

Maddy explains that Pick-Up Sticks are the perfect things to use
for the bird feeder. What a smartie!

With the loaf, we just cleared out the center, threw in some peanut butter, then added bread pieces and seeds in the center. We scattered the extra bread around on the tray, and we were finished! On to the bird feeder. . .

While they worked, I assembled the parts we'd need for the bird feeder. Once I had the gallon container, rope, and scissors, I got stuck on the 'two long sticks' part. Hmmmmm, what on earth can we use for the sticks? I have no idea.

Maddy immediately shouted, I know! Pick-Up Sticks! The new ones!

How perfect!? And that's what we used--two wooden Pick-Up Sticks.

The assembly of the bird feeder was pretty simple. First, I cut large holes in two sides of the jug so that the birds could sneak inside for seeds. Then I made small holes on each side of the carton, about an inch from the bottom. I criss-crossed the Pick-Up Sticks through each hole. Now they had a place to stand.

Finally, I made four tiny holes in the top of the container, about an inch from the top, threaded the rope through, and tied it tightly.

Maddy, Owen, and Cora took turns filling up the bottom of the container with seeds, and we were finished. We put the seedy-loaf out back on a small table for the birds and squirrels, and we hung the bird feeder from our plant hanger in the front yard.

And then we waited. . .

And before we knew it, our way-too-bold squirrels were feasting--only a few feet from our door! I think it was just cool for the kiddos to feel like they prepared--and served--a special treat for our backyard friends.

Thanks to Your Big Backyard Magazine for the inspiration for this little crafty-craft, and specifically, thanks to the National Wildlife Federation's insert in the magazine that contained the instructions for the activity.

Consider checking out The Green Hour's site; it's packed full of some really cool ideas for outdoor crafts and activities with little ones, but most importantly, I find their mission to be totally awesome. Because "we are raising the first generation of Americans to grow up disconnected from nature," the NWF's Green Hour campaign is to give children free, unstructured time for outdoor play each day.

The National Wildlife Federation recommends that parents give their kids a "Green Hour" every day, a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. This can take place in a garden, a backyard, the park down the street, or any place that provides safe and accessible green spaces where children can learn and play.

Most importantly, by giving our children a "Green Hour" a day -- a bit of time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world -- we can set them on the path toward physical, mental, and emotional well-being. And at GREENHOUR.ORG, you'll find inspiration and ideas to do just that. Each week we publish a fresh issue full of activities and information to help guide the exploration and focus on fun.

Green Hour is a program of the National Wildlife Federation.

I love it--and even though I am an advocate for a little bit of secret learning through play each day, I think children most certainly do need unstructured, outdoor play time each day, too--any time of the year.

What what better timing than at New Year's, when we're all thinking about fresh starts and new beginnings. . . Happy New Year's, friends!

quick trick: ornament love

Before all of the ornaments are off of the store shelves, I wanted to share two of our ornament secrets.

Thanks to one of my very best friends, I learned about the pickle ornament tradition waaaay back when I was in elementary school, and the minute I heard about it, I knew I someday wanted to have a pickle ornament tradition in my house.

• Pickle Ornament: I was never sure really why they did it; all I knew was that the Teles family had a really cool pickle ornament that the kids searched for on Christmas morning. And the child with the sharpest eye got an extra--always extra cool--present.
  

So for the last few years, we've done the same thing: we hide the pickle ornament, and the person who finds it gets an extra gift. But I've made sure, since our kids are still very young, to make the gift something that can be shared--a big Crayola Color Explosion or Color Wonder set, a jumbo pack of markers.

The controversial pickle tradition is believed to have German roots, but who really knows. It's fun for kids no matter where it began. Here's some info on the Legendary Pickle Ornament and The Christmas Pickle Story.

• Ornaments from Anywhere: When we go away, rather than spend a fortune on little toys or trinkets that just get thrown away or soon forgotten, my mom got us into the habit of picking up Christmas ornaments along the way.
  

A St. Michael's sailboat from our little first anniversary getaway.

Granted, our tree is a far cry from the Martha Stewart or Pottery Barn-perfect tree, but it's really awesome how our tree is beginning to tell a story--a story of our vacations, adventures, and day trips.

My parents and sisters also bring home ornaments for us from their travels; they always pick up funny ones or ones with extra glitter and sparkle.

Totally tacky, but it brings back memories of our fun
day at Dutch Wonderland this past summer.

And that's it--just two quick ornament ideas for my super-incredible, totally awesome teach mama readers before the holiday shelves are bare and before everyone begins a New Year of travel and fun.

If you have any cool ideas worth sharing--please do so! I am always up for new ideas and am so grateful to those who share. Cheers, friends!

teeny-tiny things in a teeny-tiny tin

After having been covered in snow for the last seven days, we finally had a clear day to go outside and burn some steam.

So while my husband played college-guy and rooted for UMD in the stands this afternoon, I took the troops out for an "after-the-snow" hunt on a wet and soggy playground.

Lately, Cora has been doing what I remember both Maddy and Owen doing when they, too, were about 2 1/2--putting things inside socks, inside boxes, inside purses, inside whatever and carrying them all over their little worlds. And sometimes they lined up their treasures on their beds, displayed them in a "fort", or just organized them in any small space.

I read in my What to Expect. . . that some kiddos do this simply because they can. So rather than fight it, I thought I'd run with it today:

• Teeny-Tiny Tin Hunt: I had these strange little yellow tins that Maddy, Owen, and Cora are always wild about because the lids work differently than anything they're familiar with. You push the middle of the lid to open, and then squeeze the sides to close it.
  

I had four empty ones, so I taped up the lids, wrote their names on each and said, It's sunny! It's cold, but let's go outside! You can ride your bike or scoot up to the park, and once we get there, we'll go on an 'after-the-snow' hunt for teeny-tiny treasures that fit inside each of your teeny-tiny tins. Here you go.

These are especially for you, and once we get to the park, we're going to see how many tiny things we can squeeze into each of our tins. When we're finished, we'll count and see who can fit in the most. Our hearts will be so happy to finally get some exercise. Let's go--

They played with the lids for a while--Cora, the no-napper--got pretty frustrated and needed help the first few times; they really are tough for little hands. Then we went on our way.

Cora and my tin was full of all kinds of surprises.

But once we made it to the park, it was amazing how much Maddy, Owen, and Cora found when they honed in on all of the tiny things. Sure, some things were gross--a partially eaten candy cane--but other things were pretty cool.

We found some clean--and dirty--coins, some barrettes, teeny little flowers that somehow survived the snow (seriously!), pretty rocks, beads, you name it.

I hunted around with Cora, and when it seemed like we hunted for a while, we met at the circles, in a sunny spot in the middle of the blacktop, and we counted our teeny-tiny things.

Owen, my game guy, worked his little heart out filling his tin to the brim with anything and everything small, and he rocked it with over 60 items. Okay, so most were wood chips, but I never set a limit on how many of one thing a person could add. Little smarty. . .

The whole thing took only a few minutes, but it gave our trip some focus before we played, ran, scooted, hopscotched, and then took the path back home.

These kind of really simple activities that are presented as a game are super important because they can deal with important mathematics concepts that our little ones really need.

Children "enjoy talking about large numbers even if the numbers are not understood," (from Copley's The Young Child and Mathematics, 2000) so this activity gives them a chance to really see what those big numbers can look like: Sixty wood chips can fit into Owen's tin? Wow! Then can you imagine how many wood chips we have in our whole park?! Can you even make a guess?

There are a ton more places to take this simple activity, and we just may do that next time:

• bring chalk to the park (ooooh, yes!) and write the numbers right there on the blacktop;
• take the tins back home and write the number of items each person has on paper--or big roll paper;
• have a teeny-tiny hunt at home, inside this time;
• line the objects up by 2's, 5's, or 10's and count them that way. . .
  

So that's that--just a tiny bit of outside math learning for us today!

family photos + playing cards = three games!

I've been a woman possessed ever since I watched Maddy and Owen play Old Maid with my parents back in the fall. Such a simple game. And the kids loved it.

But wouldn't it be sooo much more fun if, instead of all those funny-looking cartoon faces, my own funny-looking family members were on those cards?

(I'm including my own funny face, mind you. . . )

Yes, yes, and. . . YES!

So I've been doing some secret crafting for the last few nights, and it's been remarkably easy--it's just that the printing, and cutting, and gluing, and contact-papering has been time consuming. But it'll be worth it once my kiddos see their game under the Christmas tree!

• Family Playing Cards: I made sure to take pictures of family members when we saw them over the Thanksgiving holiday. With eyes rolling and big sighs, they stood like good sports for me against a plain background, and these shots made the whole process of Family Playing Card makin' so much easier.

Gluing pictures to cards. . .

Then I created a verrry simple playing card template with every person's name on it. That template can be downloaded and modified to fit your family's needs by clicking on Family Playing Cards.

I printed everyone's picture twice, using the 'wallet' size option, and they fit perfectly on the cards. I used cardstock for both the pictures and playing cards.

I cut out the cards and pictures, then glued the pictures onto the cards. I then wrapped the cards in clear contact paper, and I was finished.

If we hadn't just had a million snow days and my husband could have made it into school, he would have laminated everything for me. Plan B was to use clear contact paper, and it worked out fine.

What I realized--as I created these--was that they could be used for Old Maid, which was my original plan. I made a funny winter penguin (from last weekend's newspaper) our Old Maid card. But take away the Old Maid card, and we could play Go Fish! Seriously.

Put the cards in rows, face down on the floor, and we could play Memory! All with the same cards. Just like the day I realized that the A, B, C Song was the same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Baa, Baa Black Sheep, I wanted to dance around and sing. Well, not really. . . but I was pretty excited.

Of course Golden and Guinea were in the mix--
they're part of our family, too!

I added the rules to Go Fish, Old Maid, and Memory at the end of the pdf for Family Playing Cards. There are so many variations of each game that it was tough, so I just decided to focus on the ways we most often play.

My goal is that by playing with these cards Maddy, Owen, and Cora will not only get a kick out of seeing their cool family members' faces on each card (as well as their own sweet smiles), but they will also become more familiar our family members' names.

Not that they don't already know them--of course, they do--but I want Maddy to learn every person's name so that she can write them by memory, I want Owen to be able to at least recognize and read the names on his own, and I want Cora to start to learn the letters that begin each name--that Grandma's name begins with a 'G', Nanny's begins with an 'N', and so on.

I was sure to have everyone's name printed clearly on the top of each card for this reason.

And that's it for me for a few days; I've got a ton to do to prepare for the holiday, and I'll be back again after Santa stops by--Happy Holidays and happy game playing!!

read a word, build a snowman

We have had a ton of snow dropped on us in the last two days; clearly, my kiddos have snow on the brain.

So I knew that if I wanted to sneak in a little bit of learning over here while we were stuck in the house, I had to capitalize on their current love interest: snow!

Sure, we've been reading, coloring, and playing with Legos (and don't get me wrong--along with our fair share of teasing, arguing, and crying), but those sight words are just so darn easy to stick into games that I found inspiration in one of my old faves and turned it into a snowy day Build a Snowman Game.

• Build a Snowman Game: This is so easy. First, I used cardstock and printed out two copies of the Build a Snowman Game, which includes a snowman's face and five parts--two coal eyes, a carrot nose, a coal mouth, and a hat. You can download it here: Build a Snowman Game.
  

Then I printed two copies of the Upper Emergent Word Cards because Maddy seemed ready, and I knew I was going to be on Owen's 'team' while we played today.

Owen's five word cards

Finally, I grabbed Maddy and Owen and asked if they wanted to build an inside snowman before their rest times today. Of course, they looked at me like I was crazy, but then they finally said, "YES!!"

I said, We're going to play a new game today to celebrate the snow, and it's called 'Build a Snowman Game'. We'll use some of Maddy's word cards, and all you need to know is that the game is kind of like 'Go Fish'. Remember that game?

I need you to put all of these tiny word cards face down in a pile. Then Maddy, you'll take your snowman face, and Owen you take our snowman face, and we'll get started.

Owen had two word pairs, so he earned two snowman parts:
a nose and mouth.

Essentially, the object is to be the first player to complete her snowman face. But in order to put an eye, or a nose, a mouth, or a hat on your snowman, you need to find matching word pairs.

Each player begins with five word cards and should have at least five cards at all times.

We put our word cards on green paper plates because, for some reason, we had two green plates were in our living room. We also kept our word cards face up because we wanted to help each other out a bit.

Players put down any pairs they pick, and they can add a piece to the snowman when they find a pair. Then, like Go Fish, player one asks player two if she has a word from his hand, and if she does, she gives it to him; if not, player one grabs a card from the pile.

When one person completes a snowman face, then she's the winner--as long as she can read each of her five word pairs!

We made sure to read the words as we went along, and I also used brown M & M's as the snowman's eyes. (Seriously, why not? They look like eyes, and after the cookies and candy my kids have been putting away, what's two more M & M's except more holiday game fun?)

Ya-hoo! Owen and I completed our face!

They liked it. They really seemed to enjoy the game, and they were excited-giddy even before they ate their chocolate. Kids like to create faces, and this was simple enough that they could manage the word reading and face building and not be overwhelmed.

I think that tomorrow we'll do it with the Early Emergent Words or the Letter Cards. Or maybe both. And I'm seeing more 'Face Building-Scene Creating' Games in our long, cold, snowy-winter future. . .

The cool thing about this game is that I can use it for any level--letters if one of my kiddos needs work on letter recognition or any level of sight words that I need. Feel free to do the same.

• Alphabet Letter Cards (uppercase and lowercase): consider playing uppercase-lowercase letter match
• Early Emergent Word Cards
• Upper Emergent Word Cards
• Early Fluency Word Cards
• Fluency Word Cards

And I'm jumping for joy! I just re-saved all of the files as pdf's and will be saving that way from here on out; maybe that will be easier for my friends to open and use the files at home. Let me know what you think. Happy Snowman Building!

toys! toys! toys! -- list writing

Most children--even those who might dodge homework and would rather pick up a baseball instead of a pencil--are interested in writing a Wish List for Santa at this time of the year.

I know my kiddos get all starry-eyed any time they get their hands on a sales circular when the Sunday paper arrives. So I decided to have Maddy and Owen go through the fliers and make a Wish List for the holidays.

I had them use the skinny, unimposing, kind of unusual rolls of receipt paper that my amazing mother-in-law brought over for us a while back, and I just wanted Maddy and Owen to write, write, write.

• Toy List Writing: The sales circulars were spread across the table, and I said, Okay my friends. Let's look through these advertisements and circle everything and anything that we want. I mean--any and every toy you think you'd like to have. Circle the toy and words near them.
  

The directions were simple enough, and Maddy and Owen--as one could imagine--went toy-circling crazy.

Maddy's list.
Yes, it includes a dog and a cat. No, she will not receive either.

After we examined the toys, talked about what they had their little gimmie-gimmie-gimmie eyes on, I said, Now let's use these markers and write down all of the toys we want. The rolls of paper are skinny, so your lists might get pretty long.

Maddy understood and immediately got rolling, but Owen needed a little more direction with what words to write down on his list. Soon, it became more of a 'who can write the most words' kind of event, but as fast as it began, it was over--when we heard naughty Golden and Guinea making strange noises and speeding around in their cage.

Hey--it was something while it lasted. . .

My goal here was not letter-writing; that's a whole other super-important lesson for another day.

It was not gratitude, giving, or kindness; I didn't have time for that today, although now looking back it might have been nice for them to make lists for gifts they'd like to give friends and family members--and it might have been just as easy.

Really, my focus for the ten minutes I had was to get Maddy and Owen to write. Plain and simple. I wanted them to practice their letters--uppercase or lowercase, I didn't care--just find the important words and copy them. That's it.

So that was our teeny-tiny--borderline pathetic--bit of learning for the day, but I'll take what I can get at this crazy-busy-fun-nutty-completely-magical-and-exciting time of the year.

almost too cute to eat--

Can you tell how we rang in Maddy's big numero seis birthday?

That's right--this past weekend, we celebrated by taking Maddy and a few of her pals to see Disney's The Princess and the Frog.

But before we left for an afternoon at the movies, the girls and their moms came to the house for froggie cupcakes and sweets. Y.U.M.

• The Princess and the Frog Cupcakes: Maddy helped me make these little guys--and it was a cinch. We made regular cupcakes, added a little blue food coloring--then a little more and a little more--and then a pinch of red until we developed the perfect blue for frog heads.

We then split a green gumdrop in half, shoved in a white chocolate chip and added a dot of black gel icing. Then Maddy insisted they needed noses, so lucky for us--and the frogs--that we had tiny chocolate chips just waiting to find a new life as the nostrils of froggy Tiana or Naveen.

Our Princess and the Frog cupcakes

Of course, we gobbled them up in seconds in order to make it to the movie in time, but they were a cute way to celebrate Maddy's birthday and Disney's long-awaited Princess Tiana.

Finally--a strong-willed, determined, intelligent, kind, and hard-working Disney princess-role model who isn't sitting around waiting for her prince to save the day. Sure, we weren't lovin' the scary Shadow Guy, the crazy voodoo stuff, or losing that silly lightening bug, but overall, I'd say the movie was a hit for our tiny group of kindergartners and moms. (And I really think I saw some of the moms jammin' in their seats and drying tears from their eyes at the end, too!).

And that's it--still busy over here getting things together for the holidays but trying to take deep breaths and enjoy the season.

Our down-times have been filled lately with puzzles, legos, crafting, and baking, but I'll share the specifics when life settles down a bit--a whole lot of secret learning and cool games going on over here that I can't wait to share. . .

And thanks to Family Fun Magazine for the super-cute Princess and the Frog cupcake idea. Looooove that magazine!

super-easy, fabulously sparkly, no-mess ornaments

Each year, I've tried to have my kiddos create a gift for our family members. Okay, when they were super-tiny, I slapped their cute faces on ceramic ornaments, but now that I've got a crafty 6, 4, and 2-year-old, I'm putting them to work.

And really, the time we spend together working on our projects rocks, and they all love creating beautiful art for people they love.

Only this past spring did our family discover the joys of Model Magic--it's by Crayola and is every parent's dream.

It's a no-mess, easy-to-use modeling clay with bright, mixable colors, and it air-dries after only a day or two. And it doesn't stain. And it never flakes off and ends up in the carpet like Play-doh. And kids can color on it with markers. Or glue stuff to it, and it sticks like whaaaat.

So after I saw this idea on Frugal Family Fun (a new blog I have only recently discovered and totally heart), I decided to follow Valerie's lead and use Model Magic for our homemade ornaments this year. Her idea was awesome, and we just took her idea a step further and blinged ours up a bit.

(Spoiler alert: family members, close your eyes. . . )

• Model Magic Ornaments: These are seriously super-easy, fabulously sparkly, no-mess ornaments. I love them, and I really think our family will, too.

On Friday afternoon, after Maddy got home from school and everyone had eaten their snacks, I said,

Okay, my friends. We have a lot of work to do today. We are going to put on our ornament-making hats and start some presents for our family. Who's ready?

From that point on, we worked. We rolled out our Model Magic, using my big rolling pin and two tiny ones I picked up (for $1 each!) at the craft store.

Owen was one strong roller!

Then we used our smaller holiday cookie cutters to cut out stars, snowflakes, balls, gift boxes, and trees. I wanted the ornaments to be light and small enough to not break the branches of everyone's trees.

(I actually bought the cheapest, largest pack of holiday cookie cutters I could find at our craft store. And I love them. They do the job--and the big ones are perfect for cutting holiday shapes out of sandwiches!)

Maddy uses her knife--carefully!

Maddy, Owen, and Cora used plastic knives to get their shapes out, and believe me--the shapes were not all perfect.

We decided to use all of the shapes, even the sad-looking ones, and we'd just make sure to give those guys a little extra sparkle.

When we finished most of the blue, green, and white Model Magic and our hands were tired and sore, we used a straw to make tiny holes at the top of each ornament, and then we let our shapes dry.

We waited about two days until our ornaments were totally and completely dry, and we spent a chunk of the morning beautifying. We used glitter glue--which I totally wish I would have invented--and we also added sequins, sparkles, and more glitter glue.

Cora uses a Q-Tip to apply Tacky glue to her ornament.
Then she'll add her sequins!

Before we knew it, every last ornament was covered with sparkle, as were six tiny hands and smocks. The turned out more beautiful than we could have imagined--and they were so easy to make!

One tray of finished--beautiful--ornaments

I wrote M, O, & C--2009 on the backs of the ornaments (that's about all that would fit!), and then we finished our gifts.

The final steps were simple--I tied skinny ribbon on all of the ornaments while Owen and Cora decorated tiny brown bags with Christmas Foamies.

We then made a pile for each of our family members and took turns each picking an ornament for that person. Each person--or family, actually--has four special ornaments in their bag.

So that's that--even though the gift took a few days to complete, the ornaments are gorgeous, the steps were easy, the cost was low, and the time spent together was fun.

Happiest of holidays!

And thanks again to Valerie at The Frugal Family Fun blog for the Model Magic-meets-Christmas idea!

recipe reading (and cookie-eating)

Today was our holiday cookie-baking day. We baked a million cookies, and we're still not finished.

As Maddy's becoming a stronger reader, she has really enjoyed trying her hand at handling the recipe-reading herself. And with this recipe, I formatted the 'Directions' differently than I had before, with our muffin-making or fun with that ginormous zucchini.

This time, I roughly followed the structure of Mollie Katzen's series--frame-by-frame instructions. But I simplified it just a bit, and it seemed to work well.

• Recipe-Reading--Iced Pumpkin Cookies: We love these sweet cakey-cookies, and I (shhhh!) decided to make them again for my yearly cookie exchange with friends.
  

It's an easy recipe, and Maddy, Owen, and Cora get a kick out of adding all of the spices. Plus, the cookies are nut-free, so my pals with allergies in the family can also enjoy them.

Maddy's adding spices. . .

The Kid-Friendly Iced Pumpkin Cookies Recipe is here to download. But if you're exchanging with your pals, why reinvent the wheel--the Mom's Cookie Exchange Iced Pumpkin Cookies Recipe is also here to download.

Because the recipe calls for ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pumpkin--on top of the normal sugar, butter, egg, my kids seem to especially like making these. And every single time--every time--they want to try each spice.

. . . and Cora's giving the spices a taste.

So I make tiny piles of the ingredients and let them taste each. Sure, every time Maddy, Owen, or Cora tastes cloves or nutmeg, they stick out their tongue and yell for water, but usually an M & M clears their tiny palates quickly. I think it's great to get kids familiar with the differences between salt, sugar, flour, and anything that's safe to try.

The Pampered Chef cookie ballers
(or whatever they're called. . . ) really make the job easier.

I slipped the recipe sheets into plastic sleeves so that the kids could write on them with crayon and then wipe it off for next time. As we completed each step of the recipe, Maddy put a check in the appropriate box, just like she did as we gathered our ingredients before we began.

Our finished Iced Pumpkin Cookies

Our finished products tasted great and looked pretty darn good, too.

And that's it for today. . . tons of cookies baked, and my little emerging readers got some practice reading and following the steps to the recipe as well.

Pour the milk, put some cookies on a plate, and let's eat some sweets!

my early christmas present

This sure put a smile on my face a few weeks back when it ran in the Local Living at the top of the 'Family' page of The Washington Post.

Woo-hoo! Yippee!!

A super-huge thank you to my family and friends who read teach mama and to The Post for mentioning me!

What a neat way to ring in the holiday. . .

post-it, cora!

As Cora and I sat at the dining room table, coloring and chatting while Owen was at school yesterday, we worked a little on her name.

She was drawing tiny pictures on small Post-It Note sheets, and I was trying to organize the mountains of papers that had recently found their way to our table. After I watched her color on her "tickets" for a bit, I decided to jump in and use some of them to play with the letters of her name.

• Post-It Note Name: I wrote each letter of her name on one tiny Post-It Note. Then I put them at the top of a piece of construction paper.
  

I said, Cora, here are the very special letters of your name--C, O, R, A. Let's say the letters together. C-O-R-A.

Then I mixed up the letters and said, Oh no! Now your letters are all mixed up. Let's put them back in the correct order. Hmmmmm. I know your first letter is 'C'. Is this a 'C' (I pointed to the C) or is this the 'C' (I pointed to the A).

Right! Here is your first letter--C. Will you move it down here for me?

Cora's letters are all mixed up...

Next, I said, Your next letter is 'O', which is Owen's letter. Is this an O, or is this an O? Then, Which one is your 'R' and which is your 'A'? Right. Now let's put the letters in the right spots so your name is spelled!

I've talked about giving children choices before; rather than set them up for making a mistake or asking them a close-ended question, I've always learned that having them make a conscious decision about their answer is the best route.

....she only needs the 'A' and she's spelled her name!

After her name was spelled and the letters were in the correct order, I mixed them up again, and each time she put them in order, I facilitated less and less so that the last time we did it, she did it on her own correctly.

Cora puts her letters back in order.

Little ones most often learn the letters of the alphabet, followed by the first letter of their names (and often the first letters of their family members' names), followed by the spelling of their names It's a word that means the most to them, so it makes sense that they'd want to "own" it right off the bat.

And any games we can play with "their" letters--whether it's re-arranging magnetic letters, letter blocks, or foam letters in the bathtub, helps them learn this lesson in a fun way.

And that's that. It's a busy month of celebrations for us, with Maddy's birthday and the Christmas holiday, so any teeny-tiny bit of learning I can sneak in--when I'm not sweeping tinsel off of the floor or scrambling to make treats for this or that--makes me happy!

kissing reindeer hunt

I've had several kind people email me asking what I meant on our Advent Activity Calendar by "Kissing Reindeer Hunt."

Hmmmmm, looking back, it is a bit confusing.

So here goes:

• Kissing Reindeer Hunt: The Kissing Reindeer Hunt is a quick but fun scavenger hunt that began at our Advent Calendar and ended with our tiny Kissing Reindeer.
  

The Kissing Reindeer Hunt is here to download and to make your own if you'd like.

Since our mornings are nutty to begin with, and we don't have a whole lot of time for any major other than breakfast before we walk Maddy to school and get Owen to preschool. So I wanted today's activity to be fun and include something sweet, since after yesterday's activity, they deserved it!

This morning's hunt just included five easy-to-read clues that led them from our Advent Calendar to our kitchen table to our front door to Golden and Guinea's cage and finally to where we keep our shoes.

At the end, Maddy, Owen, and Cora found our Kissing Reindeer, and (shhhhh!) ate their sweets before breakfast. Yum!

Happy Holiday season!