I tried this with my son on our vacation, and it was good for at least half an hour of fun on his own, while we splashed about in the water.

Take a few sheets of paper with outlined drawings on them - a fish, shell, starfish, anything at all.  It doesn’t even have to be beach related, although it helps.  Also, take a glue stick along.

At the beach, fill in the outline with glue,  and turn the paper drawing-side down on dry sand.  Press it gently for a few seconds, remove the paper and shake off excess sand from the sides.  You have  a nice beach artwork that’s also a great reminder of your time by the sea!

To make sure your paper doesn’t fall apart, paste it onto a piece of poster board before you head to the beach,  or use thick card stock paper.

Back home, turn a side table into a reminder of your beach trip with these framed beach art pieces, your family pictures at the beach, and shells collected from your trip.

Enjoy!

Photo Courtesy: Flickr - Rockonmu

More things to do outside if the water isn’t too warm. Set up a bowling alley with your preschooler.

If you don’t have a plastic pin set, use bottles instead.  Fill clear plastic screw top bottles half full with water, and add drops of food color to each.  Decorate.  Coat the bottle with one part glue mixed with four parts water, and let her draw or paint on the bottle with markers.  Don’t fill the bottles completely because then, they’ll be hard to knock over.

Draw a line, and arrange the bottles in a row. Don’t keep a long distance from your child to the pins.

Grab a ball, take aim, and have fun. Don’t forget to lose every now and again!

Have fun!

Photo Courtesy: Flickr - Andrichrose

So what if you’re stuck miles and miles from the nearest beach this summer? Create your own beach right in your backyard with your preschooler.

Fill up your wading pool (even a large tub will do). Fill with sea shells, plastic sea creatures, and fish. Put a few drops of non-toxic blue finger paint into the water to give it that sea blue tinge.

Outside the “sea,” lay out a few beach towels. Deck out your kids in beach wear, hats and sunglasses. Place a few deck chairs, and bring out the bottles of sun block lotion. Pack a picnic basket with sandwiches, and juice bottles, and make a seaside picnic of it.

It sends them a message about making the most of their situation, rather than whining about how different things could be.

Hi, Internets! I am writing this from a glorious tropical island paradise (Okay, it’s a little beach town, it’s drizzling, and I was down with a mild bout of food poisoning last night; plus, I read in the papers that malaria has been doing the rounds, but for someone who hasn’t taken a day off in the past seven months, it sure feels like heaven).  Hope all is well with all of you wonderful people, and I’ll be back to regular posting over the weekend.

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!