Three days of computer problems, and I am finally getting back on track.

Make your kids’ birthdays even more memorable by adding birthday traditions to them. A tradition is something that you will repeat every year on her birthday, making for a lifetime of memories. Here are a few ideas:

1. Begin the day with a special breakfast for your birthday boy or girl, with all their favorite foods. Yes, ice-cream and pizza in the morning. Why not?
2. Write a letter to your child on each birthday. These will become wonderful keepsakes to give when she leaves home. Write down all the things that you’re so proud of. You’ll find the list grows as she gets older.
3. Save a copy of the newspaper on her birthday – this collection will make an interesting gift to give when she turns an adult knowing what was happening on her birthday each year. My Birthday in History.
4. Have guests at her party write their names or scribble them into a white tablecloth. Preserve it.
5. Make a donation to a children’s’ charity in her name. It can be as small as you can afford. Let her know about it, that some one less privileged somewhere will be a little better off on her birthday. We do this every year for my son – our way of showing how grateful we are for him.
6. Plant a sapling on each birthday.
7. Each year, take a picture of her at the party standing by the cake holding a balloon with her age on it.
8. After the party, make a special photo album to send to grandparents. Stick the pictures, let her decorate and write messages to them. On one page, make a hand print. They’ll love seeing how she’s growing.

Do you do anything extra special that you follow every year?

12

Disclaimer: I am not actually suggesting you take any number of kids in a fight.

I just played this game, and was pretty mortified at the results. Apparently, my fitness levels are at an all time low - I can take on only 12 5-year-olds-in a brawl. Pitiful.

It doesn’t help that I am vertically challenged, and don’t remember ever being trampled by a horse. Play to find out.

I’d like to know how these kick ass Moms fare - Cindy at Go Workout Mom, who’s flexing her muscles while she cleans the oven, scrubs the garage, and more feats that leave me exhausted just reading about them, and and Lisa at Workout Mommy who runs marathons. Enough said. I am guessing they’ll probably take on at least 30 runts each.

This weekend, choose a theme that you want your preschooler to pick up (colors, shapes etc.)  Make a telescope out of an old wrapping paper tube, or other card board tube.  Paint and decorate the tube.

Decide on particular shapes that you want your preschooler to spy (something that’s round)

particular colors (something that’s green or yellow)

particular textures (something that feels rough)

particular objects (something made of fabric - any type)

Any combinations of the above for an older child who finds these too simple

Enjoy!

Teaching your preschooler to express her emotions and recognize emotions in others is a huge part of her development. Unfortunately, this tends to get lost in all the attention that’s paid to getting her alphabet and numbers right.

Teaching her to recognize emotional reactions in others develops compassion in your child. Compassion is hardly an inborn trait – it has to be taught, and it’s just as important as intellectual development. What use is intellect if a child has no trace of empathy or compassion for another’s pain.

Identifying her emotions also helps your preschooler gain better control of herself. She may still have tantrums, but they won’t be as intense or as frequent as before. Use emotions to help your child understand what she is feeling, and what she needs to do to make her feel better.

1. If your child has a bad dream, put your hand on her heart and let her know you will always be in there. Tell her to place her hand on her heart every time she needs you, or feels afraid. It will comfort her. Tell her to do this every time she feels sad, angry, frustrated – it will help her understand the signs of an oncoming tantrum, and will help control tantrums better.
2. Role play and act out different life situations – happy ones, sad ones, frightening ones. Ask her to express these emotions with facial gestures as best she can. Ask her what faces she makes when she’s angry or sad or happy.
3. Use stories and rhymes to talk about emotions and feelings. For instance “Itsy Bitsy Spider” can be used to teach the power of persistence and the desire to succeed,” or Amazing Grace” can be used to teach her the power of self belief.
4. Discuss important memories in your lives. Talk about how you felt on your wedding day, when she was born, how she feels on her birthday.
5. Ask her to recount occasions when she feels, happy, sad or scared. They give you clues into her emotional state.
6. Teach her about happy places. It may seem like psychobabble, but children are comforted at the thought of being in a place where they are safe from harm or fear.
7. Use puppets to introduce emotions in storytelling. While reading bed time stories, change your voice with the emotions of the character.
8. Discuss the emotions of each character in the stories you read. Why is that little boy sad? Why dos the lamb feel afraid?
9. Don’t belittle her fears or brush them off. A bad dream is very real to your child. Talk about it with her and comfort her. Don’t just say “Oh, it’s nothing” and let that be that.
10. Keep an hour or so to spend with your child doing something she loves – putting a puzzle together, cooking etc.
11. Discuss times when you got angry with her. Let her know the reason for your reaction - Yesterday, you did this and this, and so Mommy became angry with you. Let her know that her behaviors have consequences.
12. This one’s a no brainer to raise an emotionally well adjusted child. Always tell her you love her. Even when you need to correct her behavior by scolding her, make a distinction between the scolding and the fact that you love her. She needs to know your love will last whatever mistakes she may make in her life.

Kids don’t know the right way to express anger, although they are capable of feeling all the same things we do. It’s up to you to teach your child the right way to express her feelings. Raising a child is not just about discipline and learning pursuits - a child needs to develop a strong sense of compassion and caring for others. This is something she carries with her to adulthood.

Your preschooler is already pitching in when you dress her up – she puts out her leg to wear a trouser, and tries to find the armhole, when you’re slipping a T-shirt over her head.

When to comes to dressing up, it will be a while before your child can actually pick out her clothes, and dress up on her own. Patience is key. Don’t be discouraged if she can’t dress without help. And never force her. You can pick out her clothes, and lay them out on the bed for her in the morning, but it will take time till she’s independent enough to actually dress herself up. Some kids just pick up faster – it’s no big deal if she doesn’t. My son himself only picked up these skills when he turned 6. No long term damage there.

Ready? Let’s start with the coat, then.

Place the coat on the floor with the open end facing up, and sleeves spread out. Let your child squat down near the neck of the coat, and slip her arms inside the arm holes. Then she can lift her arms up and over her head, and the coat will slide very naturally down her arms, and around her. Practice makes perfect.

For pants, demonstration works best. Sit her down beside you on the bed or floor, and let her copy your movements. Teach her to pull zippers away from her body.

For underpants, teach her to look for the little label at the back. If there are no labels, make a little mark with a permanent nontoxic marker to indicate the back.

I love this tip from Parent Hacks to teach your child to slip on her mittens. Hold the mitten on your palm with the opening facing her, and let her slide her palm inside. It’s easier for her than to struggle with the mitten with her own two hands.

Teach her to loop the belt into the loops before she puts her pants on. Mark the exact belt hole she needs, with a small piece of adhesive, or circle it with a marker from the inside.

Use the marker to make putting socks on easier – make a sign at the heel. This is where most kids fumble.

To help her tell between left and right shoes, take a marker, and make complementary signs on the inside of each shoe, so when she places them together, the marks face each other. For instance, try a “ >” sign for the left shoe, and a ” <” sign for the right shoe. Tell her, “When these two arrows face other, then your shoes are ready to wear.” Try other variations – have two half circles facing each other. Or just peg them together in the correct order with clothespins.

More Dressing Up Tips

• Always stuff one sock or mitten inside the other, so you can always find a perfectly matched pair. Or clip together with clothespins.
• Use a diaper pin to attach a pair of socks or mittens, and let them stay attached through laundry, drying and back in the drawer. You’ll never have to look for a missing pair again.
• Keep clothes in your child’s closet in complete sets, so she always has a full set that’s ready to wear. It encourages her to try dressing up on her own.
• Teach your child to make a fist when she puts her hand inside a sleeve.
• If possible, get clothing with prints or appliqués in the front, so she can differentiate the front and back on her own. For plain colored t-shirts, teach her that the label end comes at the back.
• To slip on a T-shirt, let her first place the T-shirt front down on the bed. She can then slip it over her head, and down, easily.
• If dressing up in the morning rush seems hard, try getting your preschooler to wear her clothes at night before she goes to bed. Choose only non wrinkly fabrics, and use a plastic bib to protect her clothes during her brushing and face washing routine, and you should be fine. This doesn’t work with a bed wetter, of course.
• As far as possible, use shoes with Velcro for preschoolers. They’re just easier and hassle free. Or till she gets to the point where she can tie shoelaces on her own, substitute the laces with a piece of elastic tied at the ends – she can slip and out of the shoes with ease. Some parents are of the opinion that getting shoes with Velcro fasteners or slip ons makes it harder to teach them to tie shoelaces. I think, it’s important not to overwhelm your child. They have plenty of time to learn these skills, and the chances that you’ll still be tying her shoe laces when she’s in college, are pretty slim.
• Use the wooden handles of a chair to practice tying laces into a knot. Use ribbons for practice. Be patient – tying shoelaces tends to be one of the harder skills, since it requires such fine motor skills.
• Nail a smaller coat rack for your child near the entrance, so she can hang up her coat on her own. Nail a wicker basket to hold her mittens, and small scarves. Keep a small stool handy, so she can sit down and put her socks and shoes on with ease.
• Teach her to button shirts from the bottom up – it makes it easier to get them all even.
• Build self confidence in her dressing skills by letting her overcome the smaller challenges first. Buy pants and skirts with elastic waistbands or Velcro fasteners, so she can handle them easily. The same goes for shoes.
• Velcro is a smart Mommy’s best friend – sew on a patch instead of a button on your child’s overalls, and place them on shoes.

So, how did you teach your preschooler to dress up on her own?

Challenge your preschooler’s mind with these problem solving activities. Placing a new challenge or problem before your preschooler helps her brainstorm new ways to solve it. These are necessary life skills your child has to learn, not only in the classroom environment, but also as an adult.

Try these simple activities:

• Push her toy under the couch, and ask her to retrieve it. Watch what she does. If she needs help, give her a rod or stick to try pushing the car towards her.
• Ask her to fetch you something that’s on a higher shelf she can’t reach. Observe how she solves the problem. Make suggestions if necessary – she can drag a chair or stool over…
• Mix a cup each of beans, salt and rice in a large bowl, and give your child three smaller bowls, a strainer and a colander. Ask her to separate the beans, rice and salt. talk about the different ways you could do this.
• Spill some water on the ground (you could do this when she actually does spill something on the floor!) and give her a variety of materials to wipe the mess with – paper napkins, a wash cloth, sponge, a synthetic piece of fabric etc. Discuss what material is best for mopping up the water.
• Draw two parallel lines in the yard with a piece of chalk, about four feet apart. Place a piece of crumpled paper just inside one line. Ask her to get the paper to the other line without touching it. Brainstorm different ways she can so this – the obvious one would be to blow on it. See if there are other ways to move the paper forward – fan it with a plastic plate or magazine, perhaps.

Memorizing things alone won’t prepare your child for serious learning. The brain is exercised when you throw these little challenges at it.

Have fun!

The sense of smell is the only one that sends signals to the brain, unfiltered.

Certain fragrances increase the brain’s ability to think. Mental alertness and creativity can be strengthened by smells like those of cinnamon, peppermint and lemon. Rose and lavender, on the other hand, help your child relax. Certain herbs and spices are also known to have calming effects, and can be used in appropriate situations. Use the sensory powers of these flowers and herbs to boost creativity and brainpower in your preschooler.

Encourage your child to participate in preschool activities that include the sense of smell , to stimulate these areas of her brain. It doesn’t have to be a formal activity with scented bottles – just introduce scents into everyday activities, and play around with them. Experiment!

• Give your child scented markers for artwork, or use scented dyes and paints.
• Create your own scented paint by mixing tempera paint with food essences.
• Create a fun and yummy scented paint mix of your own. Mix gelatin with just about half the amount of water that’s actually needed, and let your child paint with it. When the gelatin dries, she can have fun scratching at the painting, and sniffing the smell.
• Participate in activities together with your preschooler - make potpourri together. Put some cloves and cinnamon sticks inside a net bag, and draw it tight shut
• Make colorful new scented crayons out of old ones. Place crayons in muffin tins lined with paper, add a touch of food essence to each, and heat in the oven. You have colorful wax discs that smell heavenly. Here are specific instructions.
  
• Help her identify the smells of different food essences and extracts in your kitchen, and herbs and flowers from your garden.
• Encourage her to take an interest in your flower garden or herb garden.
• Fill your home with appropriate herbs that stimulate certain processes in the brain – keep rose, orange and chamomile in the bedroom to induce calmness and help her go to sleep. Lavender, vanilla and nutmeg are particularly good for those nasty irritable spells just before bed time. Place lemon, cinnamon, basil the room where she does most of her learning or art work.
  
• Participate in cooking activities together that make use of brainpower boosting extracts and essences - cinnamon buns, for instance.

Enjoy!

When it comes right down to it, kids are just as able to learn from the everyday stuff you have lying about your house as from pricey educational toys. You don’t have to blow a fortune on the latest fancy toys in the market to give your child an edge. There are learning aids that you can find right in your home that you can make use of for boosting language skills, counting and sorting practice, identifying objects, number practice and so on.

In the third part of my series on Money Saving Tips for Preschool Mamas, we’ve already gone through thrifty secrets for saving on clothes and art supplies.

Here are some commonly found things at home that you can use to instantly fashion learning aids for your kids.

1 - Paper Bags

Photo Courtesy Flickr - Nix Sidhe

These have unlimited uses. Use to play counting games. Attach a picture of a elephant to a puffed out paper bag, and make your child feed him peanuts by numbers you call out or by looking at a card with a number on it. Vary the picture of the elephant with a rabbit and use small pieces of carrot shape construction paper to feed the rabbit a required number of carrots.

Attach a picture of a rabbit to a bunch of paper bags, and write a number on each of them. Cut out pieces of orange tag or paper, to look like little carrots. Make small dots on each carrot. Ask your child to count the number of dots on the carrot, and place it in the rabbit bag with that number.

Stuff a brown paper bag with newspaper halfway through, and tie it with a string. Paint it black, and draw a pair of eyes with white paint. Tie a long string to the bag and hang it from a nail in your child’s room. Attach 8 strips of crepe paper to the bag, 4 on each side of the bag. Use this “spider” for counting activities, and making sets.

For more “legs” to count, tape 3 such stuffed bags to each other to make a centipede. Attach a dozen crepe paper legs on each side of the centipede, and hang in your preschooler’s room.

Take a bunch of paper bags, place them sideways, and staple them at the closed ends. Your child can use this “book” for any number of activities – as an alphabet and number scrap book, to draw pictures , to collect and name items she finds on nature walks etc.

Use lunch bags to create a city with your child – stuff with newspapers, and place on their sides. Draw windows or paste stickers on the bags to create a building. Name them “Central Library,” ” Wal-Mart” and so on. Your child can pitch in with suggestions for buildings she sees around town.

Stuff a bag with newspapers, tie the mouth with a string and attach to a stick. Use wool to create hair and draw on eyes and a face, and you have a puppet that you can use for imaginary games and story telling.

2 - Boxes

Photo Courtesy Flickr - Al Fassam

Create a story box. Place small toys like dolls and cars, plastic household toy equipment and let her make her own doll house from scratch. For boys, make other buildings like a tool shed. Let her take out an object one by one from the box and weave these objects in a story. Share in the story creating process.

Take an empty box, and wrap in white paper. Write the words of a nursery rhyme on each side of the box. Use it as a rhyme dice to sing nursery rhymes.

Punch holes into the sides of an old shoe box and give your child colorful laces to create patterns by lacing through the holes. Don’t forget to wrap a piece of tape around one end of the lace to secure it in place.

Use old detergent boxes or tooth paste boxes and use to sort in order of size, or stack inside each other.

Cut out pictures of a room from an interiors magazine like a bed room, kitchen etc. and paste on separate shoe boxes. Cut out smaller pictures of separate items that go into these rooms, for instance, a couch, chair, a dresser etc. Ask your child to place all the small pictures that go into that particular room – the bed picture goes into the bedroom box, and so on.

Stick numbers on each section of a candy box, and let your child count and place the required numbers of peas or beans into each section.

Use milk cartons that are shaped like a house, and ask your child to build a house by using square and rectangular stickers.

Use shoe boxes as nature study boxes. Let her fill up with things that she finds when shoe goes out with you – dried leaves, feathers, dried twigs etc. Ask her to name each of these objects.

3 - Play Dough

Play dough is a thrifty mom’s best friend. Let your child use these to make alphabets, and numbers. Being able to feel the alphabet as she’s molding the dough, leads to a better awareness of the letter. Make your own play dough. Use food essences like cinnamon, lemon and lavender, and let her experiment with making different alphabets with different scents.

4 - Stationery, Stickers

Take a few boiled eggs and color by dipping them for 10 minutes in a solution of water and food coloring. Use these dyed eggs for counting games - give your child small polka dot stickers, and a bunch of index cards with numerals on each. Let her look at each card and stick the required number of stickers on the colored eggs.

Create a shape chart by drawing and painting square, rectangle, triangle and circle shapes on a cardboard. Cut out a sponge in the same shapes, and ask your child to match with the shapes on the board.

Fix paper clips to index cards with a number on each. Give her a magnet with a string attached and ask her to fish out the number that you call out.

Write names of household objects on index cards (door, window) and stick them on those objects. Leave for a week and help her read and identify the words.

Cut out the front of a nice greeting card, and paste on cardboard. Cut up into several pieces (depending on her age), and use as a puzzle. You can also use the front of cereal boxes. Stick a knob (the kind you see on drawers) on each piece to make it easy for her to lift each piece.

5 - Kitchenware

Use empty plastic cups, and disposable glasses to stack one inside the other.

Use spoons and cups to measure rice, lentils, beans and other measuring activities.

Use measuring activities for preschoolers to see how much a cup of milk weighs against a cup of rice on your kitchen weighing machine.

Color pasta shapes by dipping into a solution of water and food coloring. Use to thread into a necklace. Threading games are excellent for fine motor skills development.

Let her color ice cream sticks different colors, and sort according to colors. Or color them different shades of the same color, and sort from lightest to darkest.

Give her a funnel, a strainer and colander, a glass of unstrained tea, a bowl of salt mixed with rice and let her find the easiest way to separate the salt from the rice. Same with the tea – let her figure out how to separate the tea from the leaves using these objects.

Fill jugs with water or dry beans and let her pour into an empty bowl without spilling. It helps develop motor skills.

6 - Clothes

Use beads, and buttons for sorting activities. Socks and mittens can also be used for sorting games. Sort by size, color pattern etc.

Draw a pair of eyes and stick a piece of pink constriction paper on the toe area to make a hand puppet.

Sort shoes of family members in increasing, and decreasing order.

Don’t throw away old costumes, or accessories like scarves and costume jewelry. Use these for playing dress up or for other imaginative role playing activities.

Use laundry for sorting activities. Let her sort into whites and coloreds, clothes and linens, and so on.

7- Furniture

Use ribbons to practice tying shoe laces between the two wooden handles of a chair.

Stack up cushions and use as a narrow plank for her to walk on. It helps her gain control over balance.

Use pillows and cushions as an obstacle course at home.

Throw a bed sheet between two chairs, and let her use the tent as her personal space. It encourages imagination. Ask open ended questions and encourage her to take about her “house.”

Use pillow covers to play I Spy games – stick a card with an alphabet on it to the cover, and let her find things from around the house that begin with that letter.

Play guessing games or mystery games - have a bunch of stuff inside the pillow cover - small toys, glass beads, pine cones - let her close her eyes, grab one and guess what it is.

So, what do you grab from around the house for an impromptu lesson? I’d love to hear your ideas!

There are opportunities to learn in the most popular games preschoolers play. All little girls love a tea party, and because all kids love role playing so much, your little boy will be ready to host one too! Give your preschooler some practice at entertaining on her own, by helping her host a tea party for her dolls and teddy bears.

First up, let her take the initiative in planning for the party. Let her decide the number of “guests” she’s going to have.

Help her make some little sandwiches or cheese and crackers for her guests. Here are some cooking ideas for preschoolers, as well as a mini pizza recipe if you want to throw a party your guests will rave about!

Let her set place mats for each guest with matching fork, spoon, saucers, cups and plates. Help her make her own placements out of cardboard or thick construction paper which she can decorate with markers, and little place cards out of tags with the name of the guest on each.

Get creative – use her bracelets as napkin rings.

Let her set the table with the cutlery, place cards, and place mats.

What this teaches her: This game is ideal for teaching her to set a table on her own, and gives her good practice using sorting skills to sort out forks, spoons, cup and saucers for each guest. It also helps her learn the importance of organization and the value of planning ahead.

Bon Appetit!

Maybe because their memories of anything in white coats aren’t necessarily pleasant, kids love to play at being a doctor. It gives them a chance to torture some one else with a shot! Encourage this, and use it to introduce measuring activities and language skills.

Set up a clinic for her.  Give her a chair, and a table, with an empty writing pad to make her notes in, and a sheet of paper to record data.  If she has a doctor’s play kit, all the better.  Use her teddy bears and dolls as prop patients.

Act as the patient’s Mommy with four of your “kids” coming in to see her.   First up, let her measure the weight of each “child” by placing the doll on your kitchen weighing machine.  Let her note down the weight of the doll herself.

Next, let her use a measuring tape to measure the height of the child. D on’t worry about specifics – just the figure closest to the actual reading will do.

Tell her what’s wrong with the baby – she’ been sniffing and hasn’t been eating too well etc. etc. If she has a play doctor’s kit, she could use her stethoscope to listen to their heartbeat, give them shots etc.

Let her arrange all her patients by height, and weight.

There are plenty of opportunities to learn in everyday games.  If you play games with your preschooler that encourage learning, I’d love to hear about them.