Monday Meanderings - Mom, I'm Bored!

Well summer vacation is here for most kids. About right now, the kids are excited about no school and the parents are trying to figure out what the kids are going to do all summer long! We know it is inevitable, we are going to here the three most dreaded words: "Mom, I'm bored!" I am hoping that these links will give you some good ideas of things to tell the kids to do and if all else fails, tell them to clean their room.

Time Wasters from About.com

This list is great for sitting in the car, waiting at appointments and waiting on a meal to be served. Most activities do not require any materials or if they do, you probably carry those materials on you everyday.

Summer Boredom Busters from Texas Home Educators

This is a thorough list and a great idea of how to select an activity. You can customize your list any way needed to satisfy your families interests.

 Paula's Boredom Busters

This another great list but my favorite part is the last section that is labeled "Dana's Wise Mother". I really like the ideas of having kids "lease" the TV, the dialogue journals and the summer writing projects. Hand written letters are being replaced by texting and e-mailing. Kids will  not know the excitement we all felt when we used to get fun mail. Nowadays, we mostly get bills since becoming "adults" but do you remember how excited you got when you were a kid and got a real letter or card in the mail?

Well, I hope this gives you a little ammunition for the inevitable "I'm bored" statements. Make it a great summer!

Important Recall Information

For those that are not aware, the "Shrek Forever After" glassware that McDonald's has been selling have been recalled. The designs on the glassware were found to contain cadmium. Reports claim that prolonged exposure to cadmium could cause health issues.

Effective June 8th you can go to www.mcdonalds.com/glasses for instructions on returning the glassware and getting a refund.

Grocery Expedition

If your child is anything like mine, they want to go to the grocery store with you and then they beg for all of the sugary snacks and sodas that they see advertised on TV. This is a big problem for me as like everyone else, I am on a budget and groceries are expensive enough without buying lots of unnecessary processed snacks.

One way to combat this is to give them their own shopping list. I have attached a shopping list that I put together and I just print it out and fill in the numbers of items I need. The list is a picture list so we kind of think of it as a scavenger hunt. Once he finds the food items and puts it in the cart, we discuss the food's growth habits as we move to the next item on the list.

This is an excellent time to teach your kid about where food comes from. Be prepared to "quiz" them.
1) Is this a plant?
2) Does it grown below ground?
3) Does it grow in a tree?
4) Does it come from an animal?
5) Who in the family loves this food the most?
6) How should we use this item at home?

I know it can be stressful to go through the grocery store with a kid or two in tow but if you have to do it, you might as well make it fun and educational. As the kids get older, you can even make them responsible for counting out the money for the cashier.

I hope this makes your next expedition to the grocery a little more fun. You can right click on my grocery list to print it or you can just click here.

Gender Role Stereotypes

We have come a long way from the old belief that the man always goes out and earns the money while the wife stays home and keeps the house. I remember growing up and watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver. June Cleaver would be the stay at home mom and the whole day she would be walking around cleaning the house and cooking meals in her high heels and pearls. It was impressive in a strange way, but nonetheless that is not the reality of people today. Even though we are more open minded about matters now, we frequently push kids into the old fashioned gender role stereotypes.

How many dolls have you bought your son? How many trucks have you bought your daughter? Does your son like to play with kitchen toys and your daughter with the army men action figures?

There is no need for us to push our kids into these roles. We would be offended if someone else pigeon holed our kids into doing the typical boy or girl roles. How can we be offended when others do the same things we are subconsciously doing? Studies show that kids do typically go into these stereotypes on their own to some degree. Preschool aged boys are typically more aggressive than girls and more likely to play in large active groups further away from the teacher. Preschool aged girls are typically more motherly and nurturing. They are also less likely to take risks than boys.

There are many ways to try not to pressure a child into a predetermined gender role. Do not be afraid to let your child play with all kinds of items. My son and I play "kitchen" all the time. He serves me meals and we sit and pretend to eat. He also has a doll that he helps to put to sleep at nap times. He lays the baby on his belly and pats his back until he announces the baby is asleep. I also try to buy books that are diverse in the roles of genders. Some of our favorites are:

Pinky and Rex and the Bully - by James Howe, Illustrated by Melissa Sweet; A boy loves the color pink and defends himself and his choice for a best friend, a girl who loves dinosaurs.
White Dynamite ant Curly Kidd - by Bill Martin, Jr & John Archambault; A child watches excitedly as Dad rides the rodeo bull and want to grow up to be a bull rider like him. The twist is that she is a girl.

Typical male or female roles are not inherently bad, but the person should decide their role without being forced to it. There are many differences in kids that are undeniable in the eyes of science. I do not always agree with them but will list some of them for your increased knowledge:

Girls have superior verbal abilities through early and middle childhood.
Boys are more curious and have an exploratory behaviour pattern.
Girls are more compliant with requests of parents or teachers.
Boys are more likely to play in large groups and have lots of "pals" instead of close friends.
Girls are more likely to have a few really close friends and play in small tight knit groups.

When you go into a toy store, the toys are typically presorted for you into a boy section and a girl section. We do not need toy manufacturers and toy stores pointing out to us which toys our kids should play with based on sex. We need our kids to play and learn from a variety of toys and to grow up into well rounded human beings. As a small child one of the worse names a boy can be called is "Girl". It is usually the ultimate put down for a boy and that is sad. It not only makes the boy confused and sad for being called a name but it also makes any girls that may be nearby feel like they are not as good as boys.

Do not push your kids to do only "boy things" or only "girl things". Let them do "kid things".

Wordless Wednesday - Smell the Flowers

Are you taking time to stop and smell the flowers?

Tuesday Teachings - Colors

The time has come to teach your child colors by sight and you are at a loss of how to accomplish this. There are a few things to keep in mind.
1) Repetition is key. You will have to repeat yourself over and over before they get the hang of it. (Just think of it as practice for your child's teenage years).
2) Your child is probably not color blind. Often times a child will learn the word for a color and really like the sound of the word so when you ask what color something is they will always say "Pink" or "Blue" or "Green". This is not uncommon so do not panic yet.
3) The easiest way to learn this is with every day items.

The first thing I did was get a cheap little photo album that you carry in a handbag. After that I went through the house taking pictures of some of his favorites toys. I chose 5 red toys, 5 blue toys, 5 green toys and 5 yellow toys to start. After those pictures were in the album in order (all the reds, then the blues, the greens and yellows) I found a ball in each color and lined them up side by side and took another picture. I thought of this as our "test page". The idea is to keep this album on you and when you are waiting in the grocery line or the doctor's office or wherever, whip it out and try to teach the colors. When you play with the toys at home, always call them by name and color. For example, if your child wants to play with the Elmo toy, it is the Red Elmo. Like I said, repetition is key.

Once your child has mastered the album, it is time to move onto something a little more difficult. I used an empty coffee can and cut a slit in the lid that was big enough for color pieces to fit through. These pieces are about the size of poker chips. They come in red, blue, green, yellow and orange. Now he has to sort them all out by color and then put them in the slit into the can. This reinforces his learned colors, teaches him a new color and works on his fine motor skills since it takes concentration to get the chips in the slit.

Now it is time to move onto the sorting bears. I am a huge fan of sorting bears as they can be used for so many different things. Teaching colors, teaching patterns, pouring etc. They may come in other colors but ours are red, blue, green, yellow and purple. Notice again that I am only moving onto one more color (purple). Our bears came with the matching cups so we pour out all of the bears and we set the cups at different areas on a table. My son has to get one bear at a time and put it in the appropriate color cup. Once he masters that then we move on to patterns. I will line up different color bears, like blue, yellow, green, red, purple, blue, yellow, green, red & purple. He has to continue the pattern. Since we have also learned orange from the color pieces, I will sometimes throw them into my pattern also.

Now once your child seems to be getting the hang of the 6 colors you taught them, it is time to up the ante a little. Go to the nearest paint department and get some paint samples. I get two of each sheet that I am interested in. When I get home I cut the sheets apart (mine came with three different shade values per card) and make a matching game for him. Once he can effectively match the cards we discuss the colors of each card and how there are light pinks and dark pinks, etc.

I hope this helps you in teaching a child their colors. It is very satisfying when they finally start naming the correct colors.