Chocolate Isn't a Vegetable?

One Simple Thing you can to today to increase your child's pre-reading skills is to create a photo book of his or her daily routine! Purchase an inexpensive photo album (the Dollar Store is a great source for this), or three-ring binder. Tell your child you are creating a book of him that he can use later to remember his daily routine/chores etc. Take pictures of your child making his bed, brushing his teeth, going to school, reading a bedtime story etc. Add one of these pictures to each of the pages in the photo album or three-ring binder and label it with that part of the daily routine ("Liam brushes his teeth before bed" etc.). Your child will love reading about his day and will be able to use the book to assist him in accomplishing all parts of the daily routine. Babies love photo albums too, but you may want to use page protectors for your binder pages. You can also purchase a "baby-safe" photo album here .

Today, make your own non-toxic play dough using simple ingredients! Once the play dough is ready, cut a few plastic straws into pieces of uneven length for your child to use while working with the play dough. These pieces can become antlers, tails, or whatever else you and she can imagine for your play dough creations. Have fun talking about the creatures you create, while building language and fine-motor skills! Here is the recipe we used all the time when I was teaching preschool: Combine in a heavy saucepan: 2 cups flour 3/4 cup of salt 4 teaspoons Cream of Tartar (buy in bulk or at the Dollar Store) Add: 2 cups of water 4-5 drops of food coloring of your choice Stir until lumps disappear. Add 3 Tablespoons of vegetable or corn oil and heat over medium high heat, stirring constantly. This will take a lot of elbow grease as the ingredients turn into a heavy ball of dough. Make sure to keep stirring so none of the dough touches the bottom of the pan for too long. Once the play dough h...

One Simple Thing you can do today to strengthen your child's pre-reading skills is to create Treasure Hunt Bottles! Fill an empty plastic bottle with 3/4 cups of rice and add small items such as paper clips, bottle caps, and buttons. Add more rice, until all items are hidden. Close the bottle tightly. Supervise your child closely (possible chocking hazards) as she turns the bottle slowly to discover the objects inside. Name the objects as they are found and explain their use. For older children, model writing the name of each item on a piece of paper, drawing a picture of the item beside it. After all items have been found and named, encourage your child to gather small toys and other items, and help him make his own treasure hunt bottle. Model writing down each item he adds to the bottle (or let him write his own list if he's interested). Have fun asking friends and relatives to hunt for all the treasures in the bottle! Babies will have fun shaking the treasure bottle...

Making curly ribbon hair bows yourself is a great way to create matching hair accessories for your little girls' outfits. I made these to attach to birthday gift bags as a little "extra." A tutorial for curly ribbon hair bows can be found here . Have fun!