I am not sure how many of you have come across this, but I just found a browser tool exclusively for mommies. It’s called Mommybar, and it’s pretty cool.  Some of my fave blogs are on there, and there are new blogs to visit too.  I haven’t checked out the Coupons, Websites, Shopping and other features yet, but for those of you in the US, this should prove a nifty tool.

I like that I am going to be able to run through the Mommy blogosphere instantly! Plus, there’s a bonus Kids Bar, full of activity sites, educational and coloring pages sites, puzzles, games and lots of other stuff for the kids. I can tell this is going to be very useful during vacation time.

If you’d like one for your blog or site (and I have absolutely no affiliations with the people who run this. Promise.), scroll down, and click on the “I’m on Mommybar” button on the right hand side of your screen.  I use Firefox, and installation went off super smooth.

Coloring page for your kiddies. I wish I could say it was the result of my natural artistic talents. But, its not. I am test driving a daily coloring page service. Just click on the smaller icon, print and color. Let me know if you like it!

Edit: I moved this to the right hand side of the home page.

Talk about preschool teachers from hell. I came across this story via Mommy Life, and it left me first shocked, then sad, and now simply furious.

If you haven’t come across the story yet, 5-year-old Alex underwent what one website very accurately described as “psychological lynching.” The boy who is undergoing a process that will confirm autism - was voted out by his class, rooted on by the teacher! Wendy Portillo asked each child in the class to spell out what they didn’t like about Alex - in front of the boy - and the reasons to vote him apparently included the words “annoying” and “disgusting.” When his mother Melissa arrived to take him home, he was shaken up, and told her her felt “very sad.” He has also reportedly told her since the incident, that he feels he is “not special.”

This is a five year old boy, for crying out loud! I don’t care what Ms Portillo’s excuse is. I don’t care whether she was PMSing that day, or whether she had man troubles - this women deserves to be kicked out of the system for what she did. Shockingly enough, the school still hasn’t taken any action against her!

Barbara at Mommy Life has organized a special card campaign for Alex. Just click on his picture above, and you can access a page with a postal address on it. Please send this beautiful boy a card telling him he’ s special. Tell your kids to do the same. Barbara intends to collect all cards, and hand them over to his mother, so Alex will know what a special boy he is, regardless of what his imbecile teacher says.

Picture by - Flickr: KellyB

By the time, your child reaches the preschool years, he may actually enjoy the prospect of bath time, and all those screaming sessions of his infancy and toddlerhood should have ended. Use this time to teach about the body, cleanliness and hygiene. With all that water and soap suds around, there’s plenty of opportunity for fun too!

1. While you’re getting the bath ready, plug up the sink, set her on a steady stool, give her some bowls and ladles, and let her splash about.
2. Bring on the gang - the bath tub is a great place to explore imaginative scenarios, so bring in the toy ducks (why is the duck paddling close the edge of the lake? Because somebody is waiting there with some bread crumbs for her…?), the little boats (the boys are always game for a war scene) or little plastic fish.
3. Blow bubbles. Check here for a bubble solution recipe and also one for bath salts. More fun in the bath!
4. Teach her the proper routine to wash herself - her hair, face, and so on…
5. Take the chance to reinforce and expand her knowledge of body parts. She’s familiar with her legs, hands and knees, what about her neck, back…?
6. Sing “This is the way we wash our hands…” to the tune of “Here we go around the mulberry bush.
7. Introduce some dolls, and let her wash them while you wash her.
8. Use cookie cutters to make fun sponge shapes, and let her use these to wash herself.
9. Make beards and mustaches, pointy cats’ ears, pirate’s hats, bracelets and necklaces on her face and body from soapy lather. Show her the results on a mirror.
10. Paint on the sides of the bath tub - use shaving foam, bath tub crayons.
11. Buy a small toy fishing net, or use a mesh bag attached to a stick to fish out her toys from the water.
12. Add novelty to the bath experience. Freeze one of her bath toys (put some water and the toy in an empty carton and freeze. Later, simply peel off the carton), and let her thaw out the toy in the tub.
13. While she’s splashing about, use the time you have to do a quick clean up of the bathroom. So it’s not fun for her, but you’ll get something else done on the side!
14. Add more novelty. If the weather is great, fill up the kiddie pool with water and lots of bubbles, and let her have her bath out in the yard.
15. If the mirror is still fogged up, write her name on it.
16. Warm up thick towels in the dryer, and finish your bath with these as a special treat - wrap her up tight in them when she steps out,and have a cuddle session right in the bathroom.

Enjoy!

This weekend, try this tip to help strengthen your child’s fine motor skills - the ones that will be responsible for how well she can grip and move a pencil.

Take a couple of sheets of stickers, and give her another blank sheet of paper.  Draw empty squares  on the blank sheet of paper, and ask her to remove each sticker and stick it in an empty square on the blank sheet.

Let her try not not to go over the lines of the square.  Depending on the age of your child, make the squares as big or  as small as she can handle.

Enjoy!

Because magnets do so many wonderful things (they attract stuff, you can pull things up with them), kids think of them as having super pwers.  It’s fun to see them go berserk as they explore.

• Give your child  a few magnets and a choice of objects to experiment with - coins, metal cars, plastic toys, her jewelry or pins, spoons, match box, crayons, aluminum foil, staples.  Which of these stick ot the magnet,  and which don’t?  Record the ones that do stick, and the ones that don’t separately on a paper. (Kids also love making lists - very grown up).
• Use the magnets to experiment with things around the house - refrigerator, bed, couch, washing machine, door handles, glass bowls, metal chairs, wooden chairs.
• Let her try to pick up small metal items with her magnets.
• Show her the importance of iron in our body. Take any brand of high iron content breakfast cereal, and empty in a large bowl.  Break into tiny, tiny pieces with your hands, and add water.  Stir and make a thin consistency, adding more water, if necessary.  Take a long plastic spoon or ladle, and tape a magnet to the end.  Now, stir your cereal mix for  a few minutes. Tiny filings of iron will stick to the magnet.   (Take care to explain, however that this doesn’t mean that she can just gobble anything made of iron!)
• Or break up the cereal flakes, put in a  ziploc bag and add water.  Tape  a magnet on the outside of the bag.  The iron filings will collect close to the magnet.

Enjoy!

Picture Courtesy - Flickr - Timmer!!

Kids love making small scale anything - farms, towns. This could turn into a fun half hour project for you and your child. Raid his toy closet and craft box for props, and build away.

For a town, use cardboard to make a base. If you’re making a town, use strips of oak tag to make roads, cut varying strips and glue together to make turns and intersections. Draw zebra stripes and make markings on the oak tag. Use toy traffic lights, and toy cars to complete the road.

For a farm, color patches of the oak tag in green, and use a mirror as a pond. Set up farm animals, and prop up tiny branches with leaves to make up trees. Make hills from play dough, and place these appropriately.

For both, use cardboard boxes, milk carton boxes, or her old shoe boxes to make buildings - farm houses, office buildings, schools, houses etc. Use rectangular stickers, to make windows, and doors for these buidlings.

For people, use craft sticks and paint faces on these. Glue some cotton or yarn to make hair.

You can also use colored rice - green for the grass, gray for the roads, blue for water, and so on.

Making models is great for encouraging imaginative play - there are endless questions you can ask as you’re playing.

Who lives here? Who works in the office buildings? What work do they do?

Have you ever made models towns or farms with your child? What other props do you use?

Here’s another way to introduce science into your child’s life.

Cover a bowl with a foil, and secure it tightly with a rubber band.   Place some grains of rice on the foil, and tap the edge of the foil lightly with a stick.  Watch the grains jump into the air.   The vibrations are longer if you stretch a piece of rubber instead of foil.

Or, do the same thing on a drum, if you have one.

Or, take a ruler, hold it above the table, and then hit the side of the table with it. Watch it vibrate .

Or, let her hold her throat muscles while she talks or sings, and feel the vibrations.  Explain that the vibrations of the vocal chords causes the sounds to come out.

Or, do all these together (it should take half an hour if you do them all in slow motion) and make  a science lesson of it!

Have fun and keep smiling!

This weekend, fill up a box with sand, and bury little treasures for your child to find - a toy, plastic animals and sea creatures, shells painted in glitter, coins, small balls, painted cones etc.

Have your child put her hands into the box, and pull out treasures one by one.  Ask for the names of each treasure she pulls out, or have a sheet of paper for her to write down the names of each as you spell out the letters.

Enjoy!

You won’t exactly have to drag your child kicking and screaming to play with water! There’s almost nothing they like better than to splash about. Here are some ideas for your preschooler to have fun with water, and maybe even learn a thing or two.

1. Fill up two glasses of water, and give her a short straw, and a longer straw. (Tape a couple of straws together to make a longer one). Let her drink though each straw. Which glass empties faster? Is there a difference at all?
2. Fill up a glass of water, and let her count how many sips of water it takes to empty the glass.
3. Plug up your bathtub, or kitchen sink, turn on the H2O, give her a few plastic bowls, cups and glasses, some paper boats and let her have fun.
4. Pour some bubble solution and food coloring in a bottle of water, or use detergent instead of bubble solution.  Let her shake the bottle really hard, and see the beautiful results.
5. Fill a bottle with water, add blue color, detergent, a few small leaves, and a few plastic fish and sea creatures. Let her shake the bottle hard, and look at her “sea globe.”
6. Take a glass, wrap a piece of cotton cloth on the opening, and secure with a rubber band. Put some sand on the cloth. Take another glass of water, put some mud in it, and pour this muddy water into the glass with the filter cloth. Explain the concept of filtration. Why isn’t all the mud being poured down through the cloth and into the glass? For variation, use different types of cloth - muslin, even a paper napkin. What’s the difference in the water in the first glass when you pour through different filters?
7. Throw some water in the yard, and let her clean this up. Give her different materials to clean up - a sponge, a thick cotton cloth, your kitchen mop. Let her figure out how to get the water off the ground the fastest.
8. Have fun with the garden hose. Play a game of Squirt Me Quick, and see who can squirt the other more. Terribly messy, and bad for your hair, but she’ll love it!

Enjoy!