Expired Food Overtaking your Kitchen? Not Anymore!

A couple weeks ago I organized my food storage. As small as our little stash of food is, I was surprised at HOW MUCH of it had already expired! I filled my entire kitchen table with old boxes of pasta-roni, shake and bake chicken, an assortment of canned goods, 5 bags of potato flakes, and much MUCH more. Arg! I threw out our wonderful dinner schedule for the next week and made a variety of "expired dinners" instead!

And then I got to thinking- there has to be a way to be more on top of what food is in my cupboards! I searched online and found nothing to my liking, so I created this calendar grid instead. Whenever we buy new food, we quickly jot down when it expires. (click on the list to download our checklist to 2014) If I was really on top of things I would cross off food after we eat it, but that is too much of a hassle for me to remember all the time. So I just add the new food. I can then look and see, oh, one box of brownies and 2 boxes of mac and cheese expire next month. I can check the cupboards, and if we haven't eaten them already, I will add them to our monthly menu. It has already made me much more aware of the expiration dates on the food we buy- our local store sells tons of expired food! Just food for thought! :)
Happy Teaching!

5 Senses of Christmas: SMELL and TASTE

This week we have been learning about the senses of SMELL and TASTE. They are so closely related, that I figured it would work to do it this way! Some activities we have done with the sense of smell:

• opened up mommy's spices and smelled each one
• talked about the yummy smells while we were baking
• smelled cinnamon sticks
• tried smelling candy canes- but they didn't have any scent!
• STILL NEED to smell a real pine Christmas tree

Our sense of taste activities:

• we have done a lot of baking this week- we made homemade banana bread, cake batter chocolate chip cookies, brownies.... and you bet we tasted each one several times! But I was more conscious of TALKING about what foods tasted like- and if they were yummy or icky (like the ground cinnamon we tasted) or if they tasted like bananas (like the bread)
• we did THE BEST little taste test activity! It was a riot! I had 5 small spoons & containers each holding a different Christmassy food (and very unhealthy): sugar, honey, oranges, chocolate chips, and ice cream. I then let my daughter sample a SMALL portion of each one before putting on the blindfold. Once the blindfold was on, I would give her a small spoonful from a random container and ask her to tell me what she was eating. She did VERY WELL at this game! If I were to do it over, I would add a little more learning to it by adding vocabulary words like "sweet, sticky, cold, soft". And maybe more healthy foods!

I am adding more pages to our 5 Senses of Christmas book- I will post when it's all complete!
Happy Teaching!

Candy Cane Day

Another one of our advent calendar days we recently celebrated was Candy Cane day. I showed my daughter the shepard from her nativity block set and we briefly talked about his role. I pointed out the cane he was holding and let her make the connection that it looked like a candy cane! Pretty exciting for a 2 year old, let me tell you!
We then read a couple Nativity books (Boo is obsessed with all babies being "baby Jesus" right now- and wanted to hear more and more about Him! Cute, eh!) We also ate some delicious candy canes- our first ones this year! My daughter can eat a candy cane faster than anyone else I have ever seen! What ever happened to slowly licking it- until the layers melted in your mouth and you could create a sharp point at the end... well, maybe its for the best that she can't do that yet! :)For more Candy Cane activities check out Carisa's amazing post here- I am truly in awe of this woman!
Happy Teaching!

Duck Duck Goose problem solved!

OK, maybe this is a crazy teaching post.... I am sure most of your kiddos have mastered this game in no time flat! But if there is just one mommy out there that can benefit from this, I will consider it worth my time!
I LOVE playing with my daughter and started teaching her to play the classic game Duck, Duck Goose. (FYI she just recently turned 2) She easily got the chasing part down- no sweat there! In fact she will make a few laps around the circle before trying to figure out where to sit. But she was a little confused on WHERE to sit. She kept trying to sit in her original spot. I then had the clever idea to have everyone sitting on felt squares. This easily shows the empty spot where the child needs to sit. Problem solved! Of course, she is still running multiple laps, but why not let her use her energy while having fun? I can't complain!
Happy Teaching!

Reindeer Handprint Craft

A few days ago we celebrated Reindeer Day. What did we do? um...... not much. Played some reindeer games (a.k.a. Duck Duck Goose) and made a Rudolph Handprint craft found here. My Boo would not just settle in on making one reindeer, however.... she wanted the Mommy and Daddy one, too! Hence the three reindeer in this pic! And don't they make such a cute little family!I have no clue what I will be doing with these- probably just add it to the stash of crafts and artwork that I treasure!
Happy Holidays!

Santa Dice Game makes a Great Comeback

Some of you might have read about our experience with this great dice game activity I found here. In a nutshell- my daughter was WAY more interested in eating the candy pieces than playing the game! I had dismissed the idea from trying that game again this year, to avoid messy chocolate faces and a frustrated momma, that is, until my daughter begged to play a game. Having nothing else nearby, I snatched up the gameboard and dice, and grabbed some stickers. The whole time thinking that she was going to be covered in stickers in just a few minutes.BOY was I wrong! Look at her working hard to put those stickers inside the circles! She even added 2 stickers for the eyes. I am such a proud mommy! and no we didn't use all the dice in this pic- just one :)
Here is the final product:
So thank you, Activity Mom, for sharing this activity!
Happy Teaching!!

5 Senses of Christmas: SOUND

As many of you know, we are working on the 5 senses this month. This past week we have been working on the sense of SOUND. Here is a list of some of the Christmas related activities we have done:

• listened to jingle bells, and shook them while we danced & sang
  
• I attached some little jingle bells to a pair of my daughter's shoes and we ran around (this is actually a pic of last year's jingle bells- this year's bells keep getting mysteriously untied!)
  
• we listened to a variety of festive Christmas music
• we played a simplified version of Sound Bingo (check out Handmade Beginning's post- I read about it and knew it was something we had to try!) Instead of actually playing Bingo, we just listened to the sounds while my little one sat in my lap and we tried to search for the pics together. She really enjoyed doing the activity this way!
• I made her a little book called "----, ---- what do you hear?" (her name is blurred out) with some of the sounds we listened to this week. download the pdf here After making this I thought to myself- geez, I haven't made a Mommy made Book for a long time! And rather than doing 5 little books, why not make one board book? So look for a post with the latest book installment entitled "the 5 Senses of Christmas"

So there you have it! The sense of SOUND (2 year old style!) This week we are working on Taste and Smell (since they are so closely related!) Stay tuned!!!
happy TEACHing!

Popsicle Tree Ornaments DONE and Santa Dice Game goes South

We are finished with our ornament gifts and I thought I would share a picture of our final work. We didn't have sequins so I just hole punched different colored paper and that seemed to work just fine! My daughter was a trooper and helped me glue the ornaments on about half the trees (why did I think we needed to make 6????) I also glued yarn on the back so they can be hung on the tree.

We played a Santa dice game today that I read about here. Basically, you roll the dice and put that number of small candies (like M&Ms) on a cute Santa printout (check here if you want to download it!) It didn't go as planned- my daughter just wanted to eat the treats. It is a really cute game and I think my Boo is just not quite ready for an activity like this. I did find a cute little Santa Claus & reindeer that I just COULDN'T stop myself from buying- and my daughter had fun w/ the Santa visiting her little people (and snacking on one to many M&Ms from aforementioned dice game).
Gotta run- hear my baby girl crying! Happy Holidays!!!

Playroom Labels (finally!)

I have been wanting to create some labels for some plastic drawers in my daughter's playroom. These should help her in knowing where the toys belong and will make cleaning up more an independent activity. I finally got around to doing it (better late than never, right?)

Click here to download our labels- maybe they will inspire you to create your own!

Make a Gift Day: Popsicle Stick Ornaments

My daughter and I celebrated Make a Gift Day today by making several (6 to be exact) Christmas Tree Ornaments! We still need to add the star and ornaments, but here is a picture of what our finished project should look like:
This is a really easy craft that my daughter was able to make (all but the cutting of the Popsicle sticks) She painted, glued (with my help), and tomorrow we will decorate!
Happy Holidays!

Christmas Activities Advent-Style

I was totally inspired by the Activity Mom's advent activities. I went through our already planned out month of December and put the main activity from each day on a grid. This is what I came up with:
I printed these off- cut them out, and stuck them in our advent calendar (which already contains 3 little treats for each day (mommy and daddy like candy, too!) We have a cute little advent house that looks similar to this one- although ours is brown:
Days one and two have gone well- we went ice skating and listened to bells (we are working on the 5 senses this month) We also listened to Mommy cry as I got my very first speeding ticket.... this hasn't been my favorite day, I have to admit, but as we moms all know- the show must go on!
Happy Holidays!