One Simple Thing - Wednesday - Glue Pictures and Montessori Style Letters

Glue pictures are fun to create and make wonderful, artsy decorations for your home!
Begin by encouraging your child to draw pictures using a thin stream of Elmer's glue (I always stock up on glue at back-to-school sales) on construction paper or left-over pieces of cardboard. When the glue is completely dry, use liquid tempera paint and a paint brush to paint over the glue pictures. This is a great sensory experience that also helps your child practice hand-eye coordination. You can also use this technique to create Montessori-style letter cards. Draw glue letters on cardboard rectangles and have your child trace each letter with his or her fingers. Have fun!

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One Simple Thing - Make Ice Cream! No Ice Cream Maker Needed!

You can make amazingly creative ice cream with your little one by doing the following (the original recipe can be found here ): Whip 2 cups of chilled, heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, mix one can of sweetened condensed milk with any mix-ins you like. We stirred in 1/4 cup Nutella and 1 tsp espresso powder for an amazingly rich Nutella ice cream. Later, we used chocolate chips and vanilla extract to make Stracciatella ice cream (shown below). Fold the condensed milk/mix-ins mixture into the whipped cream. Transfer this mixture to a plastic container and cover with a tight-fitting lid or aluminum foil. Freeze for 6 hours. Voila! Perfectly creamy ice cream! No ice cream maker needed! This was such a fun and creative project for the kids! They had so much fun making pineapple ice cream (adding 1 can of crushed pineapple) and chocolate (adding a chopped up chocolate bar and chocola...

One Simple Thing - Monday - Water Play

One Simple Thing you can do with your child today to increase his reading skills and boost science learning is to...play with water! Place an old towel or blanket either on a level surface, indoors or outside. Fill a plastic baking bowl or other plastic container with room-temperature water and add 2-3 small Tupperware-like plastic containers. Let the pouring and measuring begin! As your child scoops up water and scoops it from container to container, narrate what she is doing. Then, ask questions such as, “I wonder how many little scoops it takes to fill this bigger plastic container?” Ask other “investigative” questions and narrate what he is doing. Then, you are teaching language and science at the same time! Supervise closely and have fun!

One Simple Thing - Monday - Greeting Cards

It's never to early to teach our little ones about kindness! Today, create a card for a neighbor, friend, or relative! Fold a piece of paper in half and ask your child to tell you what message to include in the card. Write his message word for word. Allow him to "write" his own message as well, if he seems interested. Then, decorate with crayons, stickers, markers etc. until the card looks beautiful to both of you. Talk about how happy the person will be to receive your card and discuss other ways to "be a sunshine" (by baking cookies for a shut-in, providing dinner to a family with a new baby etc.). Babies can make greeting cards too - just paint those little hands and press them on the card for great handprint art!

Chocolate Isn't a Vegetable?

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