Two acts of kindness, a new birthday tradition!

 I was completely inspired by Valerie at Inner Child Fun and her 35 random acts of kindness for her birthday.  My daughter’s second birthday was approaching when I read the blog post.  I had been thinking about the traditions that we would be starting this year.  The idea of “paying it forward” really resonates with me, especially starting at a young age.

 Little Roo still received many gifts from her family members and had an absolutely amazing birthday party with help from my party planner friend at Minnow and Co Productions.

Our yard transformed into a fabulous play land!

Her two acts of kindness:

* Book drive in lieu of gifts at her party.  We collected books to donate rather than gifts from her toddler friends.  It was fun to see the generosity of others as well as the creativity in the hand-made cards she received.  I will keep the paintings, cards, and drawings forever.

* Cookies for community workers.  There has been construction across the street from our neighborhood all summer.  The same “worker” helps direct the truck traffic and always helps stop traffic so we can cross the street safely.  The rest of the construction crew always wave and stop to help us navigate through the maze of holes in the road and detours so that we can make it to the playground.  We decided to make the workers a batch of cookies. They were delightfully surprised to receive the cookies.  I told them how much we appreciate their friendliness and that the trucks themselves provide great entertainment.  The crossing guard’s reply, “We try to be nice, the trucks drawing so much attention just comes along with it.”

I plan to encourage Roo to continue this tradition of “giving back” to match her age every year!  I can’t wait to hear what her ideas are in the future!  What birthday traditions does your family enjoy?? Tell me how you perform Random Acts of Kindness!

Early Learning in the Garden

I admittedly have a “black thumb” when it comes to gardening.  I have never been able to keep any kind of houseplant alive.  However, I really love the idea of growing our own food, and urged my husband to get on board with the idea of planting a few vegetables this year.  Luckily, once he was invested in the project, he built a raised bed and remembers to water the plant regularly.

Most of us have heard that when children help with growing fruits and vegetables they are more likely to eat them!  I am going to take it a step further and give a few activities to engage little ones in the garden.  If you are not growing your own garden, these ideas can still be used at a farm or farmer’s market.

• Give them their own tools and their own space to dig!  This can be as simple as letting them use the plastic containers that your seedlings came in (which is what we did) or actually making them their own space like this one from The Imagination Tree. Bottom line: if you want to be working in the garden, give them something similar to do to keep them engaged.

Roo collected sticks from around the yard and used the empty seedling containers to create art!

• Go on a color scavenger hunt—find every color of the rainbow in your garden/backyard/farm/market. Pick the red tomatoes, find a yellow blossom, point to the green zucchini….etc

finding the red, ripe tomatoes and picking them!

• Count your harvest.  How many tomatoes did we pick?  We’ll need ___ lettuce leaves for our salad.

• Sort your harvest. You can sort by color, fruit or vegetable, shape, sweet or sour, etc.  You can use hula hoops or buckets to sort the produce into.

• Introduce descriptive vocabulary that engages all the senses: talk about textures, tastes, shapes, smells, and noises that they make when dropped into a bucket.  Possibly the most fun activity related to gardening is the taste test!

smelling... 

tasting....

Once they are a little older, they can help with the planting and maintenance as well.

We have been successful (so far) with lettuce, basil, zucchini and tomatoes.  Our strawberries keep getting eaten and aren’t quite flourishing.  I know that our garden is small by some standards and we didn't grow from seeds, but for our first year of gardening, I am proud that we are producing anything!!!  I absolutely LOVE picking fresh food to use in my recipes and to serve/eat as a healthful snack.

Following in her mama and dada's footsteps….

 I have yet to post much about myself….and this one will only be partly about myself ;)  After nearly ten years of running at the same pace and mostly the same distance, I decided to actually train for a half-marathon last year and increase my speed.  Last year’s training was dream-like: I had a friend to run and chat with, I didn’t get injured, every new milestone fueled me to go faster and further (there was only one super hot and humid long run that my watch wasn’t working properly so we couldn’t even see how many miles we had been that didn’t go so smoothly)!! This year I decided to tackle the marathon….I am six weeks into the training plan and have gotten shin splints for the first time and feel like I am on the verge of getting blisters, and the runs aren’t quite as dreamy!  With that being said, I have also PR’d for 5Ks and 5-milers this year, which feels great. 

Most of the time I run in the morning before Little Roo wakes up, but on occasion I take her and the BOB stroller for a spin (a worthy investment for anyone who wants to run with baby in tow).  Yesterday I decided to run to the local high school track to do some speed work.  She enjoys riding in the stroller while I am running, even asks for more “running” when we slow down or stop.  The plan was to run there, then have her play, look at books, and have a little snack in the field while I ran around the track.  We had done this once before, when my husband was able to come along.  At first, she was content eating her snack.

Once her snack was gone, she was more interested in clapping for me and bringing me my water bottle. I think her "coaching" is one of the sweetest acts…when her dad was there, he was doing that and it amazes me that after seeing him do it once, she followed suit!  What a testament to modeling the behavior we want to see.  While I also realize I am modeling healthy habits, I would rather her see kindness in action and apply it than have her be a runner!

Eventually, she wanted to run, too!! Training for the next Kid's Fun Run?!

Firework-inspired art for toddlers

Inspired by the shape and color of fireworks, we created some patriotic art work!  We used the “doodle paint” recipe (flour, salt, water, paint) in squeeze bottles--- the girls (Little Roo and a friend) were able to squeeze and drip paint onto coffee filters.  We talked about how to turn the bottle and wait for it to drip or squeeze it, as well as the colors and the shape of the coffee filter.  I mentioned the colors of the American flag and we can see one out the window.   They don’t know what fireworks are yet, and probably won’t be up late enough to see them this year.  For them it was about exploring paint in a new way, on a new paper. The texture of the paint is also different because of the salt, when it did get on their hands we talked about how it felt rough, not smooth like finger-paint.  I like to keep projects open-ended, but get inspiration from holidays, seasons, interests, etc. When this paint dries, there is a bit of a sparkle to it from the salt!

w

two hands!

waiting for the blue to drip!

To Gift Or Not To Gift??

Why is it so hard to respect a “no-gift” request for a child’s birthday party?  I am serious….I will be making a similar request when Little Roo turns two in a couple months, so why when I am asked to just come to celebrate a little boy turning one do I immediately think “I should at least get him something little?!”  I think there are many reasons to make the request of friends to skip gift giving.  Financial burden, child already has plenty of toys, parent wanting to ensure toys fit with their philosophy, burden of time and effort-- to name a few.  That being said, traditions become hard-wired in us and we can’t imagine a birthday without presents or cake.  We know that this child is going to get presents, even if it is not from us. Yet, we still have trouble respecting the parents’ wishes, which would actually make our lives just a little easier. The first party Little Roo was ever invited to had a “no gift” request, which I promptly I ignored.  Some of the other party-goers listened and I, in turn, unintentionally made them feel bad for not bringing a gift.  I was excited for the party and thought that I would never be able to show up without a gift.  Nearly a year later, Little Roo has a lot of friends that will all be celebrating birthdays every year.  From my perspective, I have started to realize that can really add up!   This time around, I decided to make a little something for the birthday boy instead….I guess I would still feel bad showing up “empty-handed.”  I made a small batch of play dough, stuck it in a cupcake liner and added a candle.  This would also make a cute party favor!  What are your thoughts on birthday parties with "no gifts??"

Sidewalk Painting!

All you need is a paintbrush, water, a sunny day and a sidewalk!!   Sometimes the hardest thing to come by in New England is the sunshine!! This fun activity is a no-mess (although depending on how much your child likes getting wet, may require a change of clothes) way to paint.  When the picture dries up, paint another, and another, and another. Older kids can time how long it takes to dry and then compare to other days findings.

When I taught preschool, the children also enjoyed “painting” the climbing structure, picnic table, fence, etc.  It can be fun to mix water painting with chalk for a different spin on the creativity!  

Simple Sorting for Young Toddlers

Toddlers learn so much from just living and playing!  If your toddler is anything like mine, they also like simple tasks and activities that they can feel successful at accomplishing. Aside from puzzles, shape sorters, and stacking rings, here are some of our favorites!  When we have had a stretch of time at home, I often quickly pull together an activity to engage Little Roo that happens to introduce her to a learning concept or skill.  Most of these activities were thrown together from items around the house (even better, in my opinion!).

Basic Color Sorting  Our first color sorting activity, I took shapes from a shape sorter and corresponding colors of cardstock and showed Roo how to make matches.  We use stacking cups and pom-poms for a similar activity.

she often puts it in the incorrect spot first and says, "no!"

"yes!"

so proud!

Freight Train Cut and Match  I had made felt train cars inspired by Donald Crew’s book Freight Train.  There was a stack of magazines about to go in the recycling bin.  I decided to cut out vibrant colored objects from the magazines and have Roo place them in the train car of the same color.  Older children, who have experience with scissors, can help find and cut the pictures themselves. 

Buttons or Pom-Poms and an Egg Carton  Roo opened a drawer of scrapbooking supplies and pulled out a small container of buttons.  I rummaged around to find an empty egg carton.  I let her explore on her own, and wouldn’t you know? She placed one button in each opening! How’s that for one-to-one correspondence?!  You can also put colors or numbers at the bottom of each egg holder and have your child sort colored buttons or pom-poms or when they are older count and place the corresponding amount in each spot. (Make sure your child is no longer placing items in their mouth if you are going to use buttons or pom-poms or just watch them very closely!)

Animal and Book Matching  I noticed that the set of little plastic animals we own coordinates with some of Little Roo’s chunky animal books.  We match them, placing the animal on top of the book.  This is a perfect activity to throw in the diaper bag, we pull it out while waiting at a restaurant or doctor’s office (5 small books and 5 plastic animals have a lot of playing potential and since the books are small they aren’t too cumbersome!).  We also find other animals in books to match with animal toys.  If you don’t happen to have books that match, you can print photos to match with any of your animal toys.

Roo (now 20 months) loves to complete these tasks. What toddler doesn’t like to clap for themselves??  She learns so quickly and amazes me everyday by how much she has learned and changed in her short 20 months of living!  I look forward to spending more time with her and finding teachable moments in her every day play!