Hello!  It’s moving weekend for us, which means I’m up to my eyeballs in boxes and mess.  I’ll be busy painting and cleaning and trying to entertain the girls with whatever random things haven’t been tucked away in boxes yet.

Before we started packing, I encouraged the girls to take pictures of their rooms (and other favorite parts of the house).  I’m planning to help them make a little scrapbook of memories from this house – they both came home from the hospital to this house and this is their first move!  Bittersweet for sure…

If you have seen any cute or unique ideas for “We’ve Moved” announcements, send them my way – I need some inspiration!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

My girls are actually at an age where they can be really helpful at the grocery store, but I have not forgotten the days of needing ample entertainment to make it through the store!  When I Spy is getting old, maybe one of these games will be a welcome addition on your next shopping trip.

Grocery Store Bingo is fun for little ones.  I like to put our bingo board in a sheet protector and bring along a dry-erase marker for marking off the things we see.  Make a board with your child’s favorite foods, or print ours for a ready-to-go activity.

Grocery Store Scavenger Hunt takes a little bit of advanced prep, but it’s lots of fun!  Choose 10 or so items from your shopping list and write a clue for each one.  Make the clues appropriate for your child’s age – these can be read-aloud by you or an older sibling at the store, or provide great reading practice for a new reader.  Attach the clue sheet to a clipboard, grab a pencil, and your child is ready to not only solve clues, but help you shop as well.  My girls love doing this, and I am always happy I took an extra five-minutes to set it up.  Here are a few clues we’ve used as examples:

• It’s a leaf we can eat and it starts with S.  We need a whole bag of it.  Choose organic if you can. (spinach)
• It’s made from milk, but it is not a liquid.  You can slice it, grate it, or melt it. (cheese)
• It is full of calcium for strong bones.  You can drink it morning, noon, or night. (milk)
• Each of these comes in two pieces, a top and a bottom.  We like to put things in the middle for a yummy lunch or dinner. (hamburger buns)

One more tip – write your clues in the general order of how you go through the store to make it easy on yourself!

How do you keep your kids busy and happy in the grocery store?

Happy Playing!

Did you make any family resolutions for 2010? The marble jar is a great way to visually track progress toward a family goal!

{Originally published May 2008}

We are very lucky to have pretty easy-going, cooperative kids.  However, there are always little things we are working on, like potty training, sharing toys, cleaning up, or getting ready for bed.  We try very hard to emphasize the positive and be proactive, so the girls can have success with our expectations.

One of the ways we help the girls visualize those little (and big) successes is with our Marble Jar.  This is a trick I am borrowing from my teaching days.  We simply have a small jar and a basket of marbles.  Whenever my husband or I “catch” the girls being especially cooperative or generous or helpful, we tell them to put a marble in the jar, sometimes 2 or 3 marbles.

When the jar is full, we get to do a special family activity that the girls have requested. We just filled the jar a few days ago, and the girls had been working toward a trip to the Zoo and Fairytale Town.  They are so excited!

The other perk of this easy technique is that the girls are working together to achieve a common goal.  I love the teamwork aspect of it, and the way they encourage each other.

One more tip — don’t start this with a jar that’s too big.  The first couple times, you might want to use a jar that holds about 50 marbles.  Our current jar holds about 100 — with the 2 girls working together, it takes several weeks to fill it.

I would love to hear other ideas for building cooperation, teamwork and success in your homes!

Meet our new centerpiece basket:

The girls enjoy creating little table centerpieces for dinner each night.  They are so proud of their lovely creations!  After a few days of trying to meet their requests for vases, fabric, bowls, etc. during dinner prep, I decided to put a bunch of goodies in basket.  I went around the house and gathered up all kinds of miscellaneous things, and of course, they add in bits from nature, plastic animals, and whatever else strikes their fancy!

In our basket right now, we have:

• small fabric pieces
• place mats – we have some the girls decorated with fabric markers
• vases and bowls, including a couple of the girls’ homemade tissue paper jar vases
• sculpey nature print “stones” – we followed the instructions for making these at The Artful Parent
• polished rocks
• shells
• a variety of other nature “treasures”, including walnuts, branches, and cattails

They often work together to create the centerpiece and I love the way this gives them something meaningful to contribute to our family meal time.

We’re busy making a bunch of place cards to add to the basket – we’ll show you them when we’re done!

Have a great Monday!

P.S.  Montessori Mama has a lovely post about helping your child create a Center-PEACE, with lots of great ideas too. 

Today, I am thankful for these two precious girls – for reminding me that we should play as hard as we work.

Have a playful weekend – see you back here on Monday!

I am always looking for simple birthday gift ideas for the girls’ friends.  I love our gifts to have a handmade touch, and I like the gift to be useful and open-ended.  We often do theme gifts, and the girls love gathering a few special things to tuck inside a bag or bucket for their friends.

Here’s a few gifts we have put together:

Cozy Reading: a new book, a homemade bookmark, and a pack of hot cocoa mix

Collage Kit:  a mixture of collage materials (pom poms, paper cut-outs, buttons, sequins, etc.), plain + glitter glue, and a canvas or shadow box

Memory Maker:  disposable camera, mini scrapbook, and a few scrapbooking supplies

Letter Writing Kit:  cards, envelopes, stamps, return address labels, and a fun pen or pencil

Scrub-a-Dub-Dub:  toothbrush, washcloth, fun soap (store bought or homemade), band aids, comb, new headband, etc.

Doughy Delight:  homemade playdough in a couple colors, cookie cutters, and mini rolling pin (include the playdough recipe, too!)

Little Chef:  apron (we have made several with the Montessori Child’s apron pattern from Sew Liberated), measuring cups, mixing spoon, and a few simple recipes printed on cards & laminated

Play Date Coupon:  make a coupon for a fun activity to do with the birthday child – miniature golfing, going to a movie, picnic and park, zoo, etc.

Green Thumb:  terra cotta pot, paints and paintbrush for decorating, a little bag of organic potting mix, and some seeds

We have also had fun gathering a few treasures based on a friend’s favorite color or animal.  Also, art supplies are always a winner, as far as I’m concerned!

What are your go-to birthday gifts for kids?

Here’s the things that are keeping the girls busy lately:

Hello there!  I can tell it's the New Year, 'cause I've got cleaning and organizing on my mind.  Every night, before bath and bedtime stuff, the girls clean up their playroom and bedroom (with some Mommy and Daddy help usually…).  Since it is part of our routine, there is usually no fuss about it.  Sometimes, though, we need a little something extra to make the cleaning-up not such a chore.  Here's a few things that we like to do:

I'd love to hear about the ways you have fun during clean-up time!

Happy playing & cleaning!

Hello there! We are fully relishing our winter break around here – there have been a lot of pajama days! While the girls are enjoying all their new goodies, I have been busy sorting, rearranging, and tidying toys, clothes, art supplies, etc. It always feels so good to freshen things up.

I tend to rotate the toys from the closet to the more visible shelves in the playroom and back again. It’s amazing how fun something is when you haven’t played with it for a month. Still, I notice the girls often playing with the same toys and forgetting about lots of other treasures around the house. I decided to basically take inventory, and write down all our toys (and some lesser-used art supplies) on cut-up index cards. I’m calling them Idea Cards.

I put all the cards in a bucket. When the girls are looking for something to do, or when I hear more squabbling than playing, they can choose a card from the bucket.

Even better, they can choose 2 cards and then come up with a way to play with those 2 items together. I think they will love the challenge of finding new ways to explore their toys. Wood blocks + playdough? Playsilks and puzzles? Such fun!

I’d love to hear your ideas on managing toys and making them accessible for your kiddos, too.

One of the Idea Cards in our bucket is our Junk Box. It’s a great go-to place for sparking creativity, plus I have a place to put all those cardboard rolls and plastic lids. You can read more about what I put in our Junk Box over at Blissful Kids today!

Happy Playing!

My girls love to collect and gather.  There is always a pile of sticks and rocks at my front door.  There’s usually a bucket of little animals traveling from the house to the car and back again.  They each began focusing on collecting a certain item – buttons for Natalie, rocks for Delaney.  Collections need a place to be stored, so we made labels (cardstock + clear contact paper) for divided bead containers and the girls have been happily filling them with their treasures.