Neighborhood Inventory

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As you take a walk around your neighborhood teach your child to be on the lookout for certain items. Our neighborhood inventory list is available by clicking here. Feel free to print out a copy and use it with a clipboard the next time you walk around your neighborhood.

I tried to make it accesible to families in large cities or suburbs by including a variety of items on the list. Have fun on your walk!

Picnic Time

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The weather is clearing up hopefully and we love to go to the park for picnics. A picnic is such a low maintenance way to have a little family fun.

Supplies:
Basket, bag or backpack
tablecloth or blanket
containers and wrappers for food
cups, forks, knives, spoons
plates, napkins
trash container

Now you just need to decide on your food for the picnic. You can make sandwiches at home using your favorite toppings (we love cream cheese with jam) or you can choose one of the themes below.

Tossed Salad - Take along any of the following ingredients and toss together the salad when you reach your destination. You can put a squeeze of lemon and/or oil and vinegar for a dressing.
lettuce
spinach
endive
other salad greens
bell pepper slices - multi colors
carrot circles or shreds
tomato slices or cherry tomatoes
cheese cubes
cucumber slices
zucchini matchsticks
celery slices
sunflower seeds
bacon bits
croutons

Dip - we usually use a spinach dip, cottage cheese mixed with crushed pineapples or strawberry jam or yogurt mixed with fresh dill then we bring along some of the following for dipping.
apple rings
crackers
bread sticks
zucchini matchsticks
pickles
cucumbers
cheese slices
chunks of bread
orange sections
bananas
olives
I have to be honest, sometimes my son just uses his fingers so he gets his own bowl of dip!

Be sure to remember your drinks and do not leave any trash laying around. Take out of the park everything you brought in.

Wordless Wednesday - Biker

Ladies love bikers!

Tuesday Teaching - Fine Motor Skills

Making Seed Tapes!

Well, Spring is going strong around here and we have had so much rain that we have not even been able to plant seeds or flowers outside yet. Since I had some seeds sitting on the table and I wanted my son to help me plant them I thought it would be a great time to work on his fine motor skills.

You can sometimes buy pre-made seep tapes but often times they will also contain some weed seeds. It is a breeze and very inexpensive to make your own custom seed tapes though.

Supplies:
Flower, Vegetable or Herb seed packets of your choosing
Paper towels or newspaper, cut into strips about 1 inch wide
Flour - very small amount needed
Water - very small amount needed
Cotton swabs
Wax paper

Put a small amount of flour (about a spoonful) of flour into a small bowl. Add a small amount of water and stir to get the lumps out. You are looking for a glue like consistency. We did use our little whisk to get the lumps out. Once you have that ready, open up your first packet of seeds.

Lay a piece of wax paper over the surface that you will be working on to keep your seed tapes from sticking to the table surface. Read the seed packet to see how far apart your seeds should be planted. I show my son this distance but he gets excited and does not always stick to the recommendation but that is okay. Now use the cotton swab and dip it into the flour glue. Dab it onto the paper towel. You do not need a lot of flour glue for the seeds to stick, less is better. Once you have a glue spot, lay a seed on top. Repeat this for all of your seeds.

We used Red Cypress Vine, White Cypress Vine and Passionflower seeds with no big problems. The Poppy seeds however were TINY! What we did with those is I would just have my son push his finger down into the seeds and the ones that stuck to his finger would be put on each flour glue spot. As you can see, there are several on each flour glue spot but there was no other way for him to get the seeds on the seed tape.

Once you have done all of your seeds, label them somehow. I used a Sharpie and it was hard to write on my paper towel but it is good enough for me to remember for a day or two. Now let the seed tapes dry. Once they are dried, they can be rolled up and put into envelopes of you can not plant them soon. If you can plant them soon, just dig a hole as deep as recommended on the seed pack and lay your seed tape in the hole. For us, we will be planting the Cypress Vines in pots to set on the deck but the other seed tapes will be planted in the flower beds.

Have a great Spring! Get outside and enjoy some time with your kids and with nature.

May 2011 Family Calendar

Here is your May 2011 calendar. Have fun with your family. Click the picture to download.

The Sailboat Project

Have you tried Origami with your kids yet? It is a great way to be artistic and work on your fine motor skills at the same time.

I work for the Child Care Council of Kentucky, a non-profit agency in Lexington. We oversee the Child Care Assistance Program in 71 counties throughout the state and we are also a Resource and Referral Agency serving 17 counties in the state. As we were discussing the services we offer and the families that we assist in finding and paying for quality child care, it got us thinking about those families. The job we do helps these families to stay afloat in their daily lives. When you go off to a job or school, you need to know that your children are being cared for and educated.

When we looked at our records we saw that we serve 15,500 families annually. That is a tremendous amount of people but it is still "just a number". I am personally a "visual" person and 15,500 is not visual to me. I need a visual to go along with that number and that is why we began The Sailboat Project.

We are asking people to help us make 15,500 sailboats this year. That will be one sailboat for every family we serve. What a great visual to see all of these sailboats standing in for all of the families that we help stay afloat each year.

Origami paper is beautiful and easy to fold but it can also be expensive. We would love for you to fold up a sailboat with any paper that you may have available to you. If you have children, let them decorate one side of the paper and then use that to fold a sailboat. Once you have your sailboat completed, write your city and state on the back and mail it to our office at: Child Care Council, Attn: Sailboat Project, 1460 Newtown Pike, Suite 200, Lexington, KY 40511.

You can download the folding instructions by clicking the picture.


Everyone makes a difference in the world, choose to make a positive difference in the live of someone.