Monday Meandersings - Road Trip

A couple of weeks ago, we supplied some activities for the car. This time, we are focusing on snacks. One tough thing about road trips is eating. No one wants to eat fast food all day and sit down meals can get expensive. Here are some snacks to pack and keep your family fed.

First we have Parenting with this delicious crunchy chickpea recipe. I can tell you from experience that these are delicious. We have made them plain and we have added chili powder to them. They are tasty any way you make them.

Next, we have Choose to Thrive with an amazing idea to carry vegetables and a dip. Her picture shows peanut butter and celery, but you could also do your favorite dip (Ranch, Spinach, etc.) with cut up veggies (carrots, snow peas, peppers, etc.).

Smashed Peas and Carrots has the best recipe! No bake Energy Bites. It is easy to make and has very few ingredients. Sounds perfect!

In addition these snacks, grab some more from our list:

Nuts - be sure they are age appropriate for your kids
Dried Fruits
Hard Boiled Eggs - peel the shells off before leaving home for a healthy protein
Cherry tomatoes - buy a variety of colors for a delicious and healthy snack
Grapes - Nature's perfect travel food...no waste
Blueberries - another perfect, no waste snack
String Cheese
Peanut Butter and Crackers
Trail Mix - make your own mix! We loves Cheerios, Goldfish crackers, small pretzels, banana chips, dried pineapple and walnuts. Sometimes we add chocolate chips, but I try to not to add them if it is very warm out to prevent melting messes.
Orange segments
Drink mixes - every now and again it is good to have a flavored water
V8 juice
Water

How do I keep the cold foods cold? We pack a small cooler that we keep in the car trunk and then a smaller insulated lunch bag or two are kept in the front of the car.

For our insulated lunch bags, I love the Packit Bag. They have not provided me with a sample or anything for this, but I purchased two bags on my own. You store them in the freezer and then pull them out to fill with food. They have kept my food cold for up to 9 hours! If you do not have a Packit, you can always freeze a water bottle to put in the bag and keep your food chilled.

Monday Meanderings - Father's Day

Father's Day is this weekend so here are some great ideas to make the Dads in your life happy.

First from Martha Stewart we have several great ideas. I love the decorated paper cube!

Next is, Me and My Pink Mixer, with one of my favorite photo props. We have done this before for several holidays. You can buy the wooden letters like Me & My Pink Mixer, or make them out of paper, or even make paper signs.

I Can Teach My Child made this adorable shadowbox using old ties. I love it and think it would look great on any Dad's wall!

Lastly, we have I Heart Crafty Things, with another cute photo prop. I must admit that the reason I love this one so much is that I do it with my son each year and have done it each year since he could stand. I just use the same frame each year and change out the picture. It is a great way to see the growth each year.

Do something nice for the Dads in your life!

Monday Meanderings: Summer Snacks - Vegetables!

With Summer, comes vegetables fresh from the garden. Do you kids have an aversion to vegetables? Do they fall apart at anything green/healthy? Here are some ideas to get your kids to try out vegetables on their own.

Recipes:

First is Taste of Home with this great vegetable spiral recipe. Most kids love bread sticks, add some vegetables to get them to try .

Dashing Dish created these delicious looking Cauliflower Pizza Bites. I am going to try these, as my son loves pizza.

I have never met a child that doesn't like chips! Why not fry up some Root Vegetable Chips courtesy of Gooseberry Mooseberry.

Those are some great recipes to get started, but some days it is all about presentation!
Here are some great vegetable presentations:

Veggie skeleton from Neatorama

Sesame Veggie Trays by Off Beat Mama

Another thing that we do in our household is make lots of our veggies (and fruit) in fun shapes using cookie cutters.

Monday Meanderings - Road Trip

Summer brings out the scariest of words for parents: Road Trip! Before we were parents, road trips were lots of fun. Now that we are parents, road trips can be torture! Have you ever been in a car on a 2 hour trip with a 5 year old that asks you every 5 minutes, "Are we there yet?" Or even worse, one that says "I need to potty" every 10 miles. It is stressful!

Here are some great ideas to keep the kids attention on your next family drive.

Prepared Not Scared has an amazing assortment of printables for road trips, from I spy to Slug Bug.

Next we have Finley and Oliver with a very cool LEGO travel box. I love this and think there are many different sized boxes you could use to change up the size.

My Kind of Makeover shows you how to make a cheap cookie tray into a travel magnetic board. The best part of this (other than being cheap)? She also has lots of magnetic activities.
Such as: magnetic crayons; magnetic stickers; and magnetic puzzles.

These should be a good start. Have a safe trip!

Tuesday Teachings - Learning the Letters

When a child is learning the alphabet, it is not enough to merely show them the alphabet and expect them to learn it. A child has to be shown something in several different contexts in order to retain it. Before you can even teach them the alphabet, you should teach them the sounds of lettes. This lets the child understand that letters make sounds, sounds make words, words make sentences and sentences make stories. It is a natural transition. When you move onto naming letters, be sure to restate the sound each letter makes.

They need to see it, feel it, taste it, explore it. That can be intimidating for parents but there is no reason to worry. Just be sure to teach your child in a variety of ways. Don't panic, there are several ways to teach letters that are inexpensive and not overly time consuming.

First, you can show them a printed letter. Do not just show a flashcard, show them the printed letter in a variety of ways. Some examples, the aforementioned flashcard, a magazine, a street sign, etc.

Next, let them write the letter using hand over hand. If you have an easel, this is a great way to work on the letter. Put the chalk into your child's hand and then put your hand over their hand, now write your letter. If you have the easel chalkboard, this is great to work on wrist strength and an important skill for your child. After writing on the easel, you can also practice writing on a pad of paper on a table. This works the child's muscles differently and is also important to their development.

Now, pull out the play dough. Teach him how to roll out a "snake" and then work on forming the letter with your play dough snake. At my house, we have the "Roll-A-Dough Letters" from Handwriting Without Tears. This is a great product and we love it, but it is not necessary. This can easily be done at home. Our kit involves a tray, letter cards and dough. My favorite thing about the kit is that it shows you with an arrow, where to start making your letter. My least favorite thing about the kit is that the dough crumbles when you try to make it into a snake. We usually just use regular play dough.

Another tool that we use frequently is our Sandpaper Letters. You can purchase these online for around $30-$40 or you can check out Momtessori for directions on making your own sandpaper letters. She uses foam board for her background and then uses a die cut machine to cut the letters out of sandpaper. I have also seen them made with sand sprinkled over glue and with glitter glue or puffy paint. The thing I love about our Sandpaper letters is that there is a hole punched in the sandpaper to show you where to start tracing your letter. This can be done when you make them at home, or you could draw arrows with numbers, showing the direction to trace/write.

We also use our alphabet cookie cutters a lot. I do not bake a lot of cookies, but I use the cutters for anything. If my son wants cheese and sandwich meat (think homemade Lunchables), then I use cookie cutters to cut out the food. I also use them for cutting fruit or anything else. Cookies cutters are not just for cookies!

Another fun thing that we did is go around the house and take pictures of people and/or toys for each letter of the alphabet. I then assembled the pictures in an album and put the first letter of each word in the sleeve with each picture. This helps with the phonological awareness, as he already knows how to pronounce all of the items that I have taken pictures of.

Monday Meanderings - Frugal Summer Fun Pt. 2

Time for some more activities for your family to do this Summer, without breaking the bank.

The Art Girl Jackie has a great tutorial on Sharpie Tie Dye. I love how she finished it off with an iron on.

Here is another great spin on the Melted Crayon Art that I see all over the Internet. This one is by Come Together Kids and I love the heart in the middle of the canvas.

Alphamom has a great tutorial on Sandpaper Printed Shirts. I love this idea and I am thinking of doing Super Hero logos for my son this summer.

Lastly,Create With Your Hands made a great sidewalk chalk neighborhood. My son would be so excited yo get all of his cars out there and go to town!

Let your creative side flourish this week with some frugal ideas!

Monday Meanderings - Frugal Summer Fun

Well, it is early May and the kids are already excited about Summer Vacations! I thought this would be a great time to start scouring the Internet to find some frugal family fun for Summer.

If you have not see this yet, you should get started now! Have you seen the Summer Bucket Lists? I love them! The entire family sits down together and thinks of things they want to do over the Summer. The list can be a wide list of items like: Find a new park; Sleep in a tent in the backyard; Summer reading; a Camp of your choice; Swimming; Wiener Roasts; Water balloons and on and on. Here is a link to Little Wonders' Days. She is having a linky party for Summer Bucket Lists and there are tons of ideas for activities to do, how to decorate your lists and your buckets. Check it out!

Parents Magazine has a fun summer games that only requires kids, pool noodles, balloons and laundry baskets. It looks like fun and I am pretty sure we will give it a whirl this Summer.

Next we have Filth Wizardry with a Tin Foil River. I love this idea and can not wait to do this. I need to start looking for some cool boats and fish to use in this.

While your are home and the kids are complaining that they are bored, why not challenge them to a bubble contest? Who can make the biggest bubble? Check out Design Dazzle for the top secret tips on making your bubble solution and your bubble wands.

We will be back soon with more great links! Get out there and enjoy the weather with your kids!

Monday Meanderings - Farm Time

This week, I thought we could take the outdoors theme a little further with farm activities. Here are some great ones.

First up is The Diary of Dave's Wife, she had a birthday party with a farm theme for her son, which was adorable. For this segment, we will be focusing on her Barn Backdrop. I love it and she was able to make it inexpensively. How cute to set that up to play with farm animal toys!

Counting Coconuts has a great Farm sensory box. What child wouldn't want to break out singing "Old McDonald" after playing with this? She also has an amazing number of other sensory box ideas on her blog.

Here is an adorable hand print craft. Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas contributes this. I love that the kids first paint on the barn, pond and meadow. Then they have to turn their hands in different directions for the animals.

Monday Meanderings - Nature

Last week we started touching on getting kids out in nature. This week I am including links to gardening with kids. We grow a variety of plants and my son loves it! I can also get him to try more vegetables, if he has a hand in growing them and picking them.

The Micro Gardener has a great story about a "Jack and the Beanstalk" themed garden. My son loved green beans, then he hated green beans and after eating some raw, straight from the garden, he is back to loving green beans. Give this a try!

What is that? You say that you have no space for a garden? Nonsense! Here is a great garden that Life on the Balcony made from a pallet! I love this, it takes up almost no space and is sitting on an apartment balcony.

Planet Pals has a great list of recyclable seedling containers. I love the eggshells! You could then plant the eggshells directly into the ground when the seedlings are ready to be transplanted. As I am putting the eggshells in the ground, I would probably crack the bottoms a little to give the roots a start on working their way out. While you are on their website, be sure to check out all the great recycling ideas.

I was on HGTV's website recently and saw this great pizza garden. This is a pretty large garden, but you could also do this in a big round oak barrel. It is rare for a child to not like pizza, so this is almost always a home run!

Teach your kids how to garden!

Monday Meanderings - April Showers

Well, April has finally arrived and with the coming of April, we welcome in flowers and sunshine. Do you garden at your home? I have found numerous projects that you can do with your kids to get them out in nature. In order to appreciate nature, a child has to be involved in nature. Here are some projects to get you started.

First up is Burgh Baby with an absolutely adorable Fairy Garden. I spent a summer working in a garden center and the owner made lots of fairy gardens and even offered classes for kids. It is pretty easy. You can find a container, or just a section of your yard. Then you can build your houses, or buy small birdhouses. I have even made fairy houses out of the small single serving milk containers. Decorate any way you want, and then go to the garden center and buy small plants. I love the way Burgh Baby glued pennies on the roof of her fairy home, for good luck. I also love her fairy swing in the tree! This is a great activity for kids to scour your yard for fairy goodies like pieces of bark, twigs, twine, seashells and so much more.

Do your kids love to water the plants? My son does, but sometimes he drowns delicate plants with the force of the water hose. Need a solution? Try out the Thumb Waterer from Fun in the Making. This can be made from recycled containers (be sure to clean them well first). You can even offer up a history lesson!

Seasonal Gnome made a beautiful garden loom. This is not only great for getting outside with nature but can really encourage fine motor skill with the weaving of items into the loom. It is also inexpensive since you scavenge the wood and then you just need twine.

My favorite is this post from Artful Adventures. Have you heard of Land Art? It is amazing. You go outside, round up some of your favorite items like leaves, blossoms, stems, rocks, etc. and then you arrange them into art. I love this fish scene. I have been on hikes before and you suddenly stumble upon a Land Art project that someone created and left. It is shocking and beautiful. Get outside and create some Land Art with your kids!

Get outside and enjoy the weather with your family! Our next Monday Meanderings will again involve getting outside with your kids.

Monday Meanderings - Birds

When it is time for Spring to arrive, my mind turns to birds. The birds start arriving from their "winter homes" and the immediately start settling in and building nests. To celebrate this, I thought we would focus on some bird activities this week.

First we have the blog, Whatever, with an adorable bird in a nest craft. I love the use of a paper plate for the entire background. I also like the fact that they used multiple items to make the nests, just like a bird would.

Here is a link to Colorado State Parks, where they teach you how to make a bird bath with a wreath and a plant saucer.

Want to make a bird feeder? Here is a great one made with Popsicle sticks. This idea comes from Tonya Staab.

Monday Meanderings - Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss's birthday is celebrated on March 2, so I thought I would start posting some activities to celebrate the big day. As far as authors go, there is no more well known name, than that of Dr. Seuss! Children and adults love his work. I even have a poster of a Dr. Seuss quote framed and hanging on my office door!

First up is The Family Kitchen with an adorable Cat in the Hat marshmallow hat snack.

Here is a Cat in the Hat activity from Teaching Two. I love this stacking idea. If you do not have the Styrofoam discs, they could be made with red tape around pool noodles too.

I would not normally encourage my child to jump on his bed, but this is too cute to pass up. obSeussed drew a picture of Pop, from the book Hop on Pop, onto her child's bed sheet and they hopped on Pop while reading the book. What fun!

Last but not least, we have I Can Teach My Child showing a great activity for Ten Apples Up on Top.

Have fun with your kids and with Dr. Seuss. He is my favorite Dr.!

Monday Meanderings - Valentine's Day

Well, tomorrow is Valentine's Day and here are some great homemade Valentine ideas for you, just in case you haven't done anything yet!

Owls are very popular right now and this is a great play on words. I found this on Inspiration for Home.

I love this idea from The Gunny Sack. I am not sure of I could do enough for a classroom in one night but I am definitely doing this for my son! He may be afraid of popping the balloon but he will love finding something inside the balloon.

This is another favorite idea for me. Glow sticks from the Dollar Store and no candy! This idea is compliments of The Teacher Wife. She has an amazing blog!

I'll leave you with a "sweet breakfast" idea from Your Commissary Insider. If you re going to make pancakes, why not make them cute?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday Meanderings - Valentine's Day

It is the season of love! Here are some great ideas that I discovered on line. As we all know, boys are not always into the lovey-dovey gushy Valentines. These are great alternatives!

 This creative idea came from Jocelyn Murphy. She has a few other designs too. Love this!

This is from Family Fun Magazine. They always have some of the cutest ideas. I might have to hit the Dollar Store soon and look for some shovels.

Next, we have The Crafting Chicks with am idea that just made my heart bounce! You can find those balls for a very low cost!


Lastly, we have Katherine Marie Photography showing you the perfect way to recycle those candy hearts! I would love to be served my lunch in a candy heart box! Check out her blog for the pictures. She reused the large assorted box and the smaller heart boxes to serve up a meal.

Be sure to check back next week when we feature some more great Valentine's ideas!

Monday Meanderings - Affordable Gifts

Well, January is almost over and if you are like me, you have already been to a few kid's birthday parties. With your kids being invited to so many parties, it can get expensive to supply gifts to everyone. I have scoured the Internet to come up with affordable gift ideas that you can use.

First up is Teaching Good Eaters. She put together several activities but I especially love the monster kits. How fun to "build" your own monsters.

Next we have Poopscape Projects with a great homemade Shrinky Dink project. You could put together a kit that includes the pre-cut and roughed plastic and some colored pencils, along with directions on putting together pieces.

The Artful Parent has a tutorial for dying play silks using kool aid. I just love the colors and the process seems simple to follow. You can also go to Tried and True to print out a graph of mixing kool aid packages to get certain colors. Very handy and affordable.

Creative with Kids is making me flash back to my own childhood. How cute to make the Paint with Water Pages. You could make several of the pages and also give the child a couple of paintbrushes and a small lidded container to carry water in.

Well, there are a few ideas to get you started. Each birthday party that your child gets an invitation to, does not have to cause you to panic. Put together a gift that you can afford and your child will be happy to give and make for their friend.