An Indoor Winter Picnic

If your weather is anything like mine, being outside is no picnic ;-) The arctic breeze is blowing through the mounds of snow. My kids love to have picnics and in the Summer, we eat outside all the time. About a week ago we packed up a picnic lunch, spread a blanket out on the living room floor and we enjoyed an indoor picnic. Part of the fun of a picnic is letting the kids help make and/or pack up the lunch. Having an indoor picnic is always a special treat for my kids because it's not something that we do very often. As we were having our picnic lunch, I had an idea, or as my kids would say, "a GREAT idea". For our next indoor picnic we are going to create Spring. We'll spend the day before making flowers and butterflies and other typical Spring crafts. We will decorate the room with our artwork, spread out our blanket and enjoy eating our picnic lunch inside our little Springtime retreat (as we watch the snow fall outside). It will be fun and something different and my kids can hardly wait. The great thing about our inside picnic is that the paper bugs won't try to eat our lunch! I love how preschoolers find such great joy in the simple things.

Weekly Challenge: Enjoy an indoor picnic with your children and make it extra fun by decorating the area with some fun artwork ahead of time.

Low-Fat, Low Sugar Pumpkin Dessert

It's that harvest time of year again when I start thinking about using pumpkin more. I love canned pumpkin because it's inexpensive, convenient and 100% natural. I have an easy and delicious pumpkin dessert that I would like to share. I used to make this dessert each year around Thanksgiving with my preschool classes and I continue to make it with my own children at home. It's called Creamy Pumpkin Mousse and I obtained the recipe years ago from a chef "Mr Food" who made it during a segment on one of our local news channels. It's diabetic friendly and figure friendly. It's also easy for kids to help make this recipe.

Creamy Pumpkin Mousse

1 Can (16 ounces) solid pack pure pumpkin
1 package (6 oz) instant sugar-free vanilla pudding
1/4 cup low-fat milk (I use fat-free)
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups frozen light whipped topping, thawed (I use a small tub of fat free, sugar free whipped topping)

1. In a bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat the pumpkin, pudding mix, milk and cinnamon

2. Fold in whipped topping until thoroughly blended then spoon into serving bowl. I like to sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on top because it looks pretty. Cover loosely and chill until ready to serve.

I know that I haven't offered up a challenge in awhile so I would like to challenge everyone to give this recipe a try. It's a great way to get another vegetable into your kids because it's "disguised" as dessert. Let me know how you and your children like the creamy pumpkin mousse. Maybe it will become a seasonal regular at your home as it is at mine.

Enjoy!

U-Pick Adventures

If you've never gone to a U-Pick farm or orchard, I definitely recommend giving it a try with your kids. Yesterday my family went blueberry picking. This was the third year in a row in which we have taken the kids. Blueberries are a favorite around our house so we like to have blueberries on hand all year long. My four year old twins had been anticipating blueberry picking day for about a month. They remembered it well from the previous year. They did a great job picking berries and were wonderful helpers. We managed to pick 22 lbs of blueberries in just over an hour. As we were picking berries, it was fun to remember how small the kids were that first year we went to the blueberry farm three years ago. It's a fun tradition and I hope that even when they are eighteen years old, they will still like hanging out with mom and dad enjoying these kinds of simple pleasures.

Today we prepared many of the berries for freezing (Place a single layer of blueberries on a cookie sheet and quick freeze for one hour. Separate into Ziploc sandwich bags and freeze). We also made blueberry muffins. It was fun for the kids to make something yummy using the fruit they picked with their own hands.

We are looking forward to apple picking next month.

Weekly Challenge: Since my challenge is coming at the end of the week instead of the beginning, think of it as a head start to next week. You have the whole weekend and next week to work on this. My challenge to you is to take your children to pick some fresh produce. If you can't squeeze in a U-Pick adventure in the coming week, at least give it some thought and try to make plans to go in the near future. It's a great family activity. It's also a great way to save money and get some wonderful high quality in season produce to can or freeze for later. After picking your seasonal produce, let your children help make something using the fruit and/or vegetables they picked.

Choose Something New (Challenge)

Do you bring your children grocery shopping with you? My children almost always go grocery shopping with me and one of the things they look forward to is choosing a food item. Sometimes I let them look around in the produce section and I encourage them to pick out a new fruit or vegetable because trying new things can be a lot of fun. Letting your children pick out a new food item is a great way to encourage trying new things and healthy eating.

Weekly Challenge: Before you go shopping, have a discussion about new foods that might be fun to try. Look through the grocery store ads and ask your children to name the fruits and vegetables. Take your children grocery shopping with you the next time you go. Let them look around and choose a new fruit or vegetable to try. When you are ready to try the fruit or vegetable at home, let you child help prepare it in some way if at all possible (washing, peeling, cutting, etc).

I would love you to leave a comment and let me know what your kids ended up trying and whether or not they enjoyed the experience. You may want to give it a try every time they go grocery shopping with you.

Weekly Challenge: Kids make lunch

I've been so busy this week. We've been remodeling our kitchen and I decided to tackle the kitchen cabinets on my own to save money. After 3 days and nights of sanding, priming and painting, I'm almost finished. My cabinet doors still need installed and I'm waiting for my husband to get some time to work on that with me. Since I don't have to paint tomorrow, I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the park for a picnic. The weather is hot and there is a park nearby with a splash pad that we've been wanting to try out. To add to the fun, I thought that I would ask my kids to pack their own picnic lunch tomorrow. I've done this several times before and my kids loved having the responsibility. I give them a few lunch food options to choose from and then I let them prepare their own lunch while I watch. My kids usually choose to make their own PB & J sandwiches because that one of their favorites.

My Weekly Challenge for you is to choose a day this week and let your kids make their own lunch. You could let him/her pack it up for a picnic or eat at home. I usually offer a variety of sandwich makings (turkey and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, etc) to choose from and some fruit that is easily prepared (grapes are a favorite here, wash and pluck). Bon Appetit!

Weekly Challenge : Be Present in Play

I don't know about you but I love doing projects with my children, going on outings and keeping busy. I have always enjoyed planning all sorts of fun activities. My children love keeping busy and get very excited about projects, activities, experiments and outings but sometimes they have no interest in doing anything other than just playing at home. Yesterday, as my kids were content playing, I realized that it has actually been awhile since I got down on the floor in the playroom, ignored everything else around me and just concentrated on playing with my kids. I'm a stay-at-home mom and my life basically revolves around my kids. We read books, do arts and crafts, experiments, projects, play outside, play games, go on outings, etc. I play with my kids everyday but when I started thinking about simple child directed free play, I realized that all too often, I start to play but then after several minutes I get distracted by something or someone. I usually take the opportunity to get a few things done when my children are busy with their own free play which is completely okay and healthy for everyone. I decided that while I do have a lot to do, I would like to make more of an effort to join in with their free play more often.

I walked into the playroom and asked my children if I could play with them. They eagerly said "yes mom" and immediately brought me into their creative play world where I stayed for about an hour before we cleaned up and went outside for a picnic lunch. We all had a really good time just playing whatever they wanted to play. I didn't direct or plan anything, I didn't give any suggestions, I just followed their lead and played without letting myself get distracted. We had a lot of fun together. There is definitely a lot of value in just sitting on the floor with no agenda and just playing whatever your child chooses. I know that my kids can detect whether or not I am living in the moment with no distractions or interruptions and they love it when I am focused on just playing and listening.

Weekly Challenge: Make time in your schedule to just play with your child. Don't plan anything in particular, just take his/her lead and don't give in to other distractions. Be present, in the moment and just play.

Patriotic Weekly Challenge

As we are gearing up for the Fourth of July here in the USA, this challenge is for those who want to pass along some patriotism to your child. In celebration of Independence Day, I want to encourage you to recite The Pledge of Allegiance with your child everyday this week.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I also wanted to share this Historic Documents site for your own educational enjoyment.

Homemade Popsicles and other Cool Treats

I have been enjoying making Popsicles with my kids this summer. Homemade Popsicles are fun to make and even better to eat.

One of our favorites is what we call Smoothie Pops. We place two bananas (the kids slice them first), a small hand full of fresh strawberries and about 1/4 cup of vanilla yogurt into the blender. After everything is well blended I pour the mixture into Popsicle molds and then freeze them until we are ready for our cool and tasty treats.





I bought my Popsicle molds at Target. Mine make 4 Popsicles and the cost for the molds was $3.99. I like them because they keep the Popsicles from dripping. If you don't have Popsicle molds you could also use small paper cups and Popsicle sticks.

We also enjoy making Banana Pops. We slice a small banana in half or a large banana into thirds. We insert a Popsicle stick into the banana length wise and then cover the banana in chocolate pudding (you can make chocolate pudding or to make it even easier, give each of your children a store bought chocolate pudding cup). I lined a rectangular plastic container with wax paper and we lined the wax paper with the banana pops. We also put colored sugar and sprinkles on the chocolate covered bananas. You could leave them as is or add chopped nuts if you like. I put the cover on the container and placed it in the freezer for several hours.

I remember making all sorts of Popsicles when I was a kid. My sister and I filled ice cube trays with our favorite concoctions. We used toothpicks for the sticks. We also filled the little paper Dixie cups and used Popsicle sticks. One of my favorite Popsicles was simply pouring lemonade into my mold and freezing it. I also used to enjoy making chocolate pudding Popsicles. Many of our Popsicles were simply frozen juice. As simple as it is, we also enjoyed eating plain ice cubes on a stick. You might be surprised how much your children enjoy plain ice. You can even add some food coloring to make it more fun.

Another of my favorite childhood treats was something that my mom made for us. She broke a graham cracker in half and then put whipping cream (Like Cool Whip) on top of the graham cracker. Next she put sprinkles or chocolate chips on the whipping cream, topped it with the other graham cracker halve and then froze them.

Weekly Challenge: Make a Homemade Popsicle or another summertime treat with your children this week. Let me know what you enjoyed.

I'm always looking for new recipes to try with my children. If you have a favorite homemade treat that is great for a hot summer day, please share it with me. You can leave a comment or email me at kim@lessonplansplus.com.

Summer Fun Ideas

I hope that you are having a wonderful start to summer. We've been spending a lot of time outside as we always do in the summer. I like to take activities that we normally do inside and bring them outside. It's fun to think of the backyard as an extension of our house and living in Michigan, summertime is the best time of the year to do that.

I want to get everyone to "think outside the box" and do a few things differently for a fun change. I will share a few things that I like to do with my kids.


Have art and craft time outside. Bring an easel outside along with paper, washable paint and paintbrushes. If you don't have an easel, attach a large piece of paper to a fence or even a tree.


Make chalk drawings on paper outside. Fill a small bucket with water so the children can make both dry chalk and wet chalk drawings. When they are finished, they can color the pavement with the wet and dry chalk.


Find a shady spot (maybe under a tree) and have story time outside.


Bring some lunch fixings outside and let your children prepare their own lunch outside and then eat on a blanket or at a picnic table.


Fill a child size pool with soapy water, give your children some sponges and let them wash several of their toys outside. When the toys are clean you can rinse off the soap residue with the hose and then let the toys dry in the sun. When I was teaching preschool outside the home, I even brought all of our classroom chairs outside and let the children scrub them clean. It was a lot of fun.

Have a outdoor pupppet show.


Weekly Challenge: Choose one of the activities that I listed or come up with an idea of your own and do it differently than you normally would. If the weather outside does not cooperate with your plans you could think outside the box and even do a typical outdoor activity indoors. My kids loved having indoor picnics in the winter. I would love to hear about your ideas.

Reading and Building Literacy with Children

My children have always enjoyed looking at books and listening to stories. Even as babies, books were one of their favorite things. I want to encourage you to read with your child everyday. I know it's easy for parents to get discouraged in attempts to read to busy toddlers as they are constantly on the go but they are learning and taking in information even as they are standing and playing. They may not appear to be listening but they are actually hearing more than you may realize.

Preschoolers are a lot of fun to read with because they are beginning to appreciate characters in a story as well as the plot. Choose a wide variety of books including picture books as well as more complex stories that are appropriate for your child's developmental level. Reading books everyday is a great way to introduce your children to words that you may not use on a regular basis. When you read to your preschooler, announce the title of the book as well as the author and illustrator. As you read, trace over the words with your finger. Take the time to involve your child in the story by asking questions such as, "what do you think will happen next..." With a familiar story, let your child help tell the story. My children love it when I read part of a sentence then stop to let them finish the sentence.

Another way to build literacy is by pointing out printed words when you are on outings. Point out the words on traffic signs, in the grocery store, at the doctors office, etc. You can even label things around the house to help your child associate words with objects. Show your children that reading is fun and reading is also an important part of daily life. Help your child get excited about reading.

The preschool and Kindergarten years are a great time to begin introducing early reader chapter books. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've found rest time to be a good time to read chapter books aloud. The nice thing about reading chapter books is that they are enjoyable for me and my children. The kids look forward to finding out what will happen next and their imaginations are active.

Many librarys offer summer reading clubs and they often include pre-readers in the fun. Our local library offers a reading club for children birth - 5th grade. The children are given calendar style reading logs with stickers. Children earn stickers by listening to stories, singing songs, etc. The library reading club is another great way to build early literacy. My preschoolers will be participating in our library summer reading club this year.

Weekly Challenge: Start a reading club with your child. You can join your library reading club or do something on your own. It addition to reading aloud to your child some other options are checking out books on tape from the library, singing songs and doing finger plays with your child or even helping your child make a book of her own. Read to your child for a least a few minutes everyday.

I was recently reading the Simply a Mom blog that my friend Hope created and she posted about a cool site called Storynory where you can listen to free audio stories. I thought others might be interested in using the Storynory site as another literacy tool.

Have fun reading with your children this summer!

Summer Fun Activities with Water

We have shifted over into summer mode at our house. The weather is warm and the days continue to get longer. I thought it would be fun to share a few summertime activities involving water.

Bubble Fun
Bubbles are great. You can purchase bubbles or make your own. I often just fill a big plastic tub with dish soap and water and give the kids a variety of "blowing objects". The little plastic rings form milk jugs make great bubble toys. I have a good recipe for bubbles on my Lesson Plans Plus website if you want nice big bubbles. The recipe is about halfway down the page.

Wash the Car and/or Wash Riding Toys.
My kids love doing this. I fill up a bucket with soapy water and sponges and they get everything sparkly clean.

Paint with Water
I give my kids a small bucket (sand bucket size) of water and paint brushes and let them paint the house with water. You can let them paint anything you wish, even the sidewalk. It's great clean fun for your little aspiring artists.

Make Rainbows with the Hose
Spray the water into the sunlight to see a rainbow of colors. It may seem obvious to you but kids are often easily amazed.

Set up a Water Table
I have the Water Wheel Table from Step 2 and my kids love playing with it. If you don't have a water table and don't want to purchase one, you can simply fill a plastic container with water and a few floating toys. Water wheels are a fun accessory and not very expensive.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE: Have some fun with water and be sure to teach your children about water safety. In addition to talking to your children about water safety, I would encourage you to sign them up for swim lessons. You could check with your city's parks and recreation department, local health clubs or even community pools to see if they offer swimming lessons. You could choose from a group class or individual swim lessons with a lifeguard. I signed my kids up for swim lessons last week. Our classes begin later this month and my kids are very excited.

Teaching Children Compassion

I recently received a comment pertaining to my post titled "Making Old Toys New Again". Here is the comment/question "...[H]ow did you introduce this concept? I don't think mine would understand if I told them other kids don't have toys to play with. We have worked on sharing and she's OK with that - although I don't know if she just does it to avoid conflict or if she really wants the other one to have a toy to play with".

Great question! I decided to just respond in a new post as there may be others wondering the same thing. After giving it some thought, I decided to address sharing, compassion and random acts of kindness as they tie together well. Hopefully, I can give you some helpful hints along the way.

I will start by admitting that I don't have a magic answer and my kids have not completely mastered this skill. The majority of the time, they do a great job but they are normal 4 year olds who can be selfish sometimes. My twins have always been very close to each other. They had to learn to share at an early age. We had plenty of screaming, grabbing, biting and hitting to work through with two small children in each others space. Children are naturally egocentric and selfish. Children may very well be sharing to avoid conflict or because that is what they have been told to do. It takes time for children to genuinely want to share.

I've found that the best way to teach compassion to children is to model it. You will probably discover that you are already teaching a lot of compassion to your child without even realizing it. I started with my children early on by showing them a lot of compassion and empathy. I involve them in acts of compassion and random acts of kindness. We try to do nice things within our family as well as outside of our family. When we see others doing nice things for people, I try to point it out to my children "Look, that person opened a door for us". "That little girl shared her snack with the boy who had none".... I encourage them to share with others because it's the right thing to do. We talk a lot about feelings and how we feel when others do kind things for us. We also talk about how we might feel if we needed something and no one would share. I try to get them thinking to help them come to realizations on their own. With younger children, you will need to give them the words and help them learn the feelings. I try to involve my children in simple acts of charity. I'll list a few examples of the things we have done and continue to do to help instill compassion and sharing.

A store we frequent requires a quarter in order to get a shopping cart. When you finish with your cart, you get the quarter back. Sometimes we leave our quarter in the cart for the next person. I tell my kids that we are going to leave a quarter so that someone who doesn't have a quarter will be able to get a cart. It's just a simple way to make someone smile. Another store we frequent has electronic pony rides for a penny. We often bring extra pennies and leave them for the next child. These are just very simple ways to show caring. At first my kids wanted to use the extra penny for a second pony ride which is completely normal but eventually, they caught the excitement of being generous. It's a building process.

Every Thanksgiving season the Salvation Army sends out cards asking for donations to feed the homeless a Thanksgiving meal. We enjoy participating in the effort each year and this year we decided to get the kids on board. We told them that we already had all of the food we needed for Thanksgiving and we still had some money left to share with others. We told them that we could buy some Thanksgiving dinners for people who didn't have money to buy food. We then asked them how many dinners the would like to buy and let them pick the amount.

As I already mentioned in my earlier post (Making Old Toys New Again), we do toy donations. We explain that some children don't have toys and it would make them happy if we shared ours. I make it clear that we will not give all of our toys away. My husband and I also set the example by donating our own stuff too. Younger children may not question why children would have no toys. Older preschoolers may be curious. My children became very curious and filled with questions around 3 years old.

When we are playing with other children, we talk about sharing our toys because it makes others happy. We are happy when other children share their toys. We might feel sad if we played with a child who would not share anything because it wouldn't be a very fun time.

We also read a lot of Bible stories and use Jesus as our example. Jesus wants us to be kind and loving and he wants us to share with others and not be selfish. We ask Jesus to help us.

I also let my children know that it's okay if they don't want to share everything. Some things are very special to us and it's okay if we don't want to give them away or share them but we must be kind about it.

We make cards for family members who are sick. Bring meals to friends or family members who could use a helping hand. We talk about why we are doing these things. Just simple lifestyle lessons. Your children are watching you all of the time. Talk about what you are doing and why you are doing it when they are young as it lays a good foundation for them.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE: Model compassion for your children this week and talk to them about it. Involve them in a simple act of sharing or a random act of kindness or compassion. You can choose one of the ideas I've already mentioned or come up with one of your own. I would love to hear what others do/have done to teach sharing and compassion to your children. You can leave me a comment or email me at kim@lessonplansplus.com

A Fun Tip: Sometimes when I catch my kids doing something kind for someone, I pull them aside and compliment them and sometimes I even give them a stamp on their hand. I have a bunch of rubber stamps and washable stamp pads and my kids love getting stamped. They don't always get a stamp when they do "random acts of kindness". Stamping is very random and an easy way to help reinforce the concept. I never want them to expect rewards for doing nice things. I want them to internalize but as we all now, sometimes young children need a little external motivation before they are able to internalize. This is a fun and easy motivator.

In addition to doing this at home with my own children, I also used this method successfully when I was teaching preschool outside the home. One year I had a classroom of children who did not show a lot of compassion for each other when the school year began. Many didn't want to share and did not use very kind words or actions. I began talking to them, modeling for them and really pumping up the idea of being kind. It didn't take long for lots of kids to get on board and when others saw and heard the praise and occasional stamp, they wanted in on it too. I found myself giving out lots of stamps in the beginning but eventually, the stamps faded but the kindness continued which was my goal.

Kids in the Garden

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I haven't posted in a several days because my kids and I have been very busy outside the past few days. We started on Friday doing yard clean-up and getting our garden area prepped. Saturday morning we went to a greenhouse way out in the country and loaded up with some of our favorite flower, fruit and vegetable plants. We don't have a very big yard but gardening has always been a big deal to me. Spending time in the garden getting my hands dirty is a wonderful stress relief. I think gardening is very therapeutic. Of course, my favorite part is reaping the fruits (and vegetables) of my labor. I love being able to grab something fresh from the garden. Even my small garden is an inspiration to eat fresh and healthy. I've tried to expose my kids to the joys of gardening ever since they were old enough to walk. I also enjoyed exposing my students to small bits of gardening when I was teaching outside the home. There's just something special about planting a seed or small plant, tending to it and watching it grow. It's a great lesson in patience and learning to care for something. I think including children in planting and gardening activities at an early age helps foster an appreciation and love for nature. I'm trying to build positive memories with my children that will carry over into their adult lives. I hope that they will always appreciate and respect nature and have a desire for fresh and healthy foods.

Weekly Challenge: Even if you don't have a large space to work with, I would encourage everyone to enjoy getting your hands a little dirty by planting something somewhere. Even if it's just a small herb garden in a patio box or some flower, herb or vegetable seeds in a Terra Cotta pot.

I'll try to post some pictures later with some of the things we planted around our house.

Some tips to make gardening/planting successful with small children:

~If you visit a greenhouse, do it close to planting day. I try to get things planted the same day or the next.

~Get all of your suppplies organized and ready ahead of time as the kids will be anxious to get started.

~Expect to get dirty (you and the kids).

~Child size gardening gloves are great for the little ones who don't love getting dirty hands. I found child size gardening gloves in the dollar bins at Target.

~If planting with a large group, it works best to work with 2 or 3 children at a time rather than have an entire class trying to do a potting activity at once. I've found that writing each child's name on a pot in permanent marker works great and eliminates confusion over ownership if you plan to send the plants home.

~Expect that young children may lose interest and/or become impatient with a gardening activity. If you are going to be involved in the project for an extended time period, plan a few low maintenance activities for the children to do alongside or near you as they tire of gardening.

Sensory Challenge

I just realized that I forgot to post a weekly challenge: My challenge to you is to enjoy a sensory activity with your children this week. Whether you fill up a bin with water or rice, roll out some cookie dough and bake, press your fingers in paint or feel the smooth and rough textures of rocks on a nature walk....have fun and let the stress of the day melt away as you think about your own childhood memories. Enjoy something simply delightful through the eyes of a child.

I would love to hear what you did! Feel free to leave a comment or email me to let me know about your simply delightful moment.

Sick Day

I need a sick day but it's not going to happen. I can't tell my two preschoolers that mommy is off duty for the day. My kids were sick last week and they were nice enough to share their germs with me. I knew that I needed to find some low effort projects to keep my high energy kids busy today.

• I put a few pipe cleaners out on the kitchen table along with a pile of Cheerios for each child. They strung the Cheerios onto the pipe cleaners to their hearts content and we made several bracelets and rings. When they finished their projects, I let them eat the Cheerios off their creations and then start over again.
• When they tired of that activity, I used Elmers glue to trace each child's name onto a piece of construction paper and then I let them stick Cheerios onto their name.

It was a simple low effort, low energy project for me that kept my kids busy, happy and quiet for awhile. I didn't even have to worry about making them a snack because they ate plenty of Cheerios while doing their projects. They also got to learn about ABC's and work on their fine motor skills.

Weekly Challenge: Have some fun with food. I'll post a few other ideas soon.

Grass Hair People

Provide small cups and markers and let your children decorate the cups with faces. After the drawings are complete, provide potting soil and grass seed. Children can plant grass seed in the cups. Be sure to place the cups in a sunny spot and water frequently. Once the grass grows tall enough children can give the grass hair person a haircut. You could also encourage your children to help fill in some bare patches on the lawn using their grass hair people.

Weekly Challenge: Whether you chose to do the rock activity, the grass activity, the May Day project or something entirely different, enjoy some aspect of nature and Spring with your children.

Cooking With Kids

I love cooking with kids. It’s often messy and most projects take longer than anticipated but it’s worth it because it instills a sense of joy in the kitchen at an early age. It also helps children feel like they are great helpers thus boosting their self esteem. When I was teaching preschool outside the home, I usually did a cooking project with the children once per week. At home, I cook, bake and create with my kids often. My children love helping in the kitchen. If you dropped by my house nearing a meal time or snack time, it would not be uncommon to find my kids in the kitchen stirring, pouring or spreading something. Cooking is a great way to easily incorporate math, science and a sensory experience into your day. And as a bonus, often children will be more likely to try something new just because they helped make it.

A challenge for the week: Let your children help cook at least one meal or snack. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate, it can be as easy as letting them dump a pudding mix into a bowl, pour milk from a measuring cup into the pudding then whisk. Maybe even letting your child slice a banana with a butter knife (with close supervision) to add into the pudding. If you are just beginning to cook with kids, keep it easy.

I plan to add several kid friendly recipes from time to time so stop back often to see what's new.