Farmer's Market

It's that time of year again when the farmer's market opens! This is a great time to get your children involved in the process of meal planning, shopping, and trying new foods. These practical life skills are immeasurable in value and can often turn picky eaters into young foodies. The farmer's market is a fantastic place to showcase new produce to your child. Let them explore the looks, smells, and tastes that the market has to offer!

This is my approach to exploring the market and new foods. Please feel free to tailor it to your family's needs.

With each trip to the market, my son gets to choose a new fruit or veggie to try. I allow him to take his time to look over everything so he can make an informed decision, helping him to explore his options. Once he makes his selection, I will give him the money to pay for it, letting him hand the money over to the vendor. Although he gets shy about this part, it's a good practice in independence and taking responsibility for his purchase. This may seem like a minor step in the processes, but it helps him feel ownership over his selection, making him less inclined to snub the produce later when it comes to eating it. My son can be a picky eater. But when he has taken the time to choose, buy, and prepare his fruit or veggie, he is far more willing to give it a taste. He worked hard for it!

Once we take the produce home, I then help him figure out how he wants to prepare his produce. He can either wash it and eat it raw, or we can look up a recipe to showcase his produce selection. For example: if he chose apples, he can either have a fresh apple for snack, or he can make applesauce or apple pancakes. (I suggest offering only a select number of options when it comes to recipes. Limited options will help save you a headache in the long run!) If he chooses to use his produce in a recipe, I usually have him still try a taste of the produce raw before cooking. This allows him to explore the before and after taste of the produce, seeing how much flavors can change when preparing the food in different ways. It helps him to become more familiar with the produce he has selected.

After he is done preparing his dish/snack, we will sit down to share and enjoy the food he has prepared. Again, this gives him ownership in the process of preparing his own food, and it celebrates his accomplishment of trying something new. Even if, in the end, he decides he does not like the food at all, I still applaud him for buying, preparing, and trying something new. It is something to be proud of!

Book Themed Meal

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...It's a classic story that almost every parents has heard of at some point. A cyclical story that starts and ends with a cookie; what kid wouldn't love a story like that? But what if you could bump the fun up a notch by actually making cookies to enjoy while reading the story? Your parental bonus points would multiply! There also a lot of great benefits to cooking with your child. Some of the payoffs include:

-Your children get to feel the joy of contributing and can gain a sense of accomplishment when helping to prepare a meal/snack.

-Kids are more likely to sit down to a family meal/snack when they helped to prepare it.

-By helping out in the kitchen, your children are spending less time in front of a TV or computer.

-When assisting in the kitchen, kids can be encourages to try healthier foods (even if you are making cookies, you can show them how to make healthy substitutions such as using raisins in place of chocolate chips).

-Parents get to spend more quality time with their kids when they cook together.

-Allowing your child to participate in preparing a meal/snack can teach them great practical life skills including set up and clean up of a meal/snack.

-Kids who help out in the kitchen get a great introduction to mathematics in a practical application such as measuring out ingredients.

In our family, we are big fans of the Laura Numeroff classics: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give A Pig A Pancake, If You Give A Mouse A Muffin, and many more. If you have any of these fun stories, I highly recommend bringing a part of the story to life by partaking in a little baking with your child and watch their excitement sky-rocket through the roof when they get to enjoy a cookie, pancake, or muffin they helped make while cuddling up and listening to a wonderful story. Because chances are, if they read about a cookie, they're going to want a real cookie to go along with it. ;)

Gardening

It's almost Spring time! While you get outside to clean up your yard and plant your garden, don't forget to involve your kids.--Target and the dollar store have adorable children size garden tools that I highly recommend.--Whether it's helping to dig in the dirt, move rocks, or rake the yard; you will be surprised at how much you and your child will get a kick out of working together in the yard. Working in the yard can build muscles, reinforce hand-eye coordination, encourage problem solving skills, and it helps to fill their lungs with good ol' fresh air. There is a great benefit to getting outside and encouraging our children to engage in nature. By assisting in the responsibility of tending to your yard, they get a first hand look at what it takes to care for plant life while discovering everything nature has to offer.

Remember to take time to explore. The backyard is a whole new world filled with plants, bugs, worms, birds, and more! Use all your senses and see what you can discover together.

Felt Board

Felt boards are really easy to set up and are a great QUIET way to keep your child entertained. So if you need a break from all the flashing, squawking, squeaking, ringing, clanging, screeching toys; you should look into creating a felt board. It doesn't even really require a board. All you need is a large piece of felt, tack it up onto the wall, and some felt characters. You can either get crafty and make your own felt characters or you can find felt characters at the craft store (such as Micheal's). I made my felt characters using felt, hot glue, and fabric markers. I have done felt boards for the holidays including Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter. It's a fun way to get the kids into the holiday spirit while enjoying some creative quiet play. You can also take turns creating stories with the felt characters too, encouraging your child's imagination and creativity.

For the Christmas felt board, I just made a tree with ornaments for the kids to decorate the tree with.

Recyclable Kitchen

Does your kid like to pretend to cook? Do you have a little master chef in the making? Well the good news is, if you want to make a fun pretend kitchen for your child, you don't have to brake the bank to do so. In fact, you don't even have to spend a dime! All you need to do is raid your recycle bin. Empty bottles, old cereal boxes, empty spice containers, you name it! If you really want to be generous, you can also add some canned goods (not from the recycling though! Please don't give your child empty tin cans since they can have very sharp edges!) and unopened bags of dried beans. Before you know it, your child will have a well stocked pantry of play food that can help feed their imagination!

Ideas of what you can use:

-recycled plastic bottles--thoroughly washed out. If you have a younger child, use a hot glue gun to secure the lid onto the bottle so it does not become a choking hazard. Before gluing the lid on, you can also add some colored water for fun to create "drinks" they can serve. But again, make sure to glue on the lid so it doesn't become a big mess.

-empty cereal boxes--tape the top shut.

-empty oatmeal containers

-unopened canned goods

-unopened bags of dried beans--these are really fun because of the sound they make plus the added weight they have from being full bags. Both the sound and feel create a bonus sensory element to the kitchen play. Moving around a heavy bag full of beans can also be muscle building for little ones.

-empty spice containers--I didn't actually wash these out so that they still held the sent of the spices. My son had a blast sniffing all the empty spice containers! It helped to enhance his pretend cooking experience, teaching him that part of the joy of cooking is exploring new smells.

-bowls, large spoons, rubber spatulas, etc.--Any old cooking utensils you can add to the cause only helps to round out the kitchen fun. I had recently cleaned out my tupperware drawer and gave all the mismatched lids and containers to my son for his kitchen. It worked perfectly.

Find a special place to set up your child's kitchen and let the cooking begin!

Stuffed Animal Dinner Party

If you have little kids, make dinner time a fun one tonight. Let them choose their favorite stuffed animals and invite them to dinner. It might seem silly, but getting involved in your child's imagination can go a long ways. Showing interest in the things they love and taking time to be a little silly with them can add up to a lifetime of wonderful memories they will cherish. Hosting a stuffed animal dinner might not seem like much, but trust me when I say: you might be surprised how much fun this can be for everyone involved.

Valentine Rewind -- A few ideas for next year

I realize Valentines Day has already come and gone, but here are a few ideas you can pocket for next year.

Since I live in a house full of guys, I went off of the old standby: "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach." But rather than feed my boys unpleasant chalky candies or other sugary treats that would leave them scaling the walls, I took things in a different direction. Pictured up above is the bento lunch I made for my eldest son. Every day for lunch I make him a bento and for Valentines Day I wanted to make him a special themed lunch. Inspired by the look of classic candy hearts, I placed a heart shaped cookie cutter in the middle of the bento box and filled it with strawberry yogurt (you can use whatever kind you like but strawberry or blueberry make for a fun pink or purple color which fit the theme). Next, I cut out Xs and Os from some cantaloupe. On the side I made kiwi hearts and strawberry roses (you can find the tutorial for the roses here: http://www.joyzz.com/article-1514.html ). I was truly surprised by how touched my son was by this. As soon as he came to the table, he looked at it and exclaimed "Hearts and flowers? For Valentines Day? For me? Thank you mommy! I love it!!!" His response was even better that I had hoped for!

Next we made a rainbow heart pizza for dinner. I'm sorry to say I didn't get a chance to snap a picture of it before it was devoured, but the experience was wonderful! I cut up a rainbow of toppings: purple onion, pink Canadian bacon, orange bell pepper, yellow pineapple, fresh green spinach leaves, and red cherry tomatoes. I rolled out and shaped the pizza dough into a heart, added the sauce and cheese, and then allowed my boys to toss on as many rainbow toppings as they wanted. They were thrilled with all the different colors! After it was cooked up, the whole family enjoyed a delicious Valentines Day dinner of rainbow heart pizza.

Lastly, for arts & crafts day with our friends, I created a little Valentines Day game for the kids to play called "Catch the Love Bug." I had some spare material in my craft box so I whipped up these cute, only slightly creepy looking, love bugs. Using the biggest cooking pot I had (although you could use a basket, bowl, or bag) we had one kid move around the room with the pot while the other kids tried to toss the love bugs into it. They had a blast! In the end, they each got to choose one love bug to take home with them too. It was another fun way to celebrate Valentines Day without the need for copious amounts of sweets.