In the Pink

In case you haven't noticed, I'm on Spring Break. It's going to be quiet around here, and I'll probably be pretty quiet with my comments on other blogs, too. I'll probably be unable to resist my reader every day and I am definitely going to be unable to resist playing around with the new blogger template designer.

Happy Spring! See you soon!

Friday Do-Over: Mapping Destinations

Spring is here! Start planning your neighborhood and city excursions by having your kid decide the routes you will take! First published 4/29/09

Kiddo and I took our street map to the local office supply store and made a set of enlargements. Copiers are good fun for kids, btw.
When we got home I asked Kiddo to find our home on the map, and the day's destination. He did this with ease, not surprisingly, and then he drew the route on the map. He liked this so much he asked for more destinations and drew those routes, too, using different colored pencils.

Reading Assignment:
This is Me and Where I Am. This book starts with the world and zooms closer and closer in on a child in his bedroom and then like a camera's wide angle lens, the locations reverse. Although not about maps, per se, I think it helped Kiddo with the concept of maps.

Are We There Yet, Daddy? This book combines 3 of Kiddo's great loves: maps, transportation and numbers. What is really nice about this book is that the map is not just located on the end papers, like a lot of books about travel, but each page has a map insert showing where the boy and his dad are along the route of their journey, and how many miles are left. I have now read this book a gazillion times.

Mapping Penny's World. I would have liked to read this book in conjunction with Map Activities, part 1, but better late than never. An excellent demonstration of how to read maps and especially map keys and symbols.

I would like to read As The Crow Flies, but our library doesn't own it.

Rub a Dub Dub

must... post... cute... photo... of... first... bath... together.Whew!

Sensory Car Wash

A fun sensory activity: hide some cars in mounds of shaving cream, provide spray bottle and fingernail brush and call it a car wash.
Provides at least 45 minutes of fun.

Truck Stop: Waffles and Dinges

When you think of NYC street food you are probably imagining pretzels and hot dogs, but in recent years there has been a burgeoning of gourmet food trucks. There are even awards for the best food truck.Needless to say, we love the food trucks and they are a great urban culinary adventure. Every Saturday Waffles and Dinges comes to our neighborhood. Jealous? You should be.

Friday Do-Over: Twist and Eat

I'm posting this again because I want to do it again! First published 5/18/09.
I had wanted to make soft pretzels for years. Why had I not done it. I don't know. That's just how I am.

I was expecting to do it all by myself as Kiddo showed no signs of interest. Until, of course, I involved numbers and counting. (If you are new to this blog you will be unaware that Kiddo obsesses over numbers. If you read regularly, you will be bored by this subject.)

Me, talking out loud to no one in particular: " I am going to divide this dough in half, that makes 2. Then I cut the 2 pieces in half, that makes 4. Hmmm, when I cut 4 pieces in 2, I wonder how many I will have?....."

Here Kiddo counts to 16.
He measures 16 inches of dough.
Then, he acts uninterested. I try making pretzel shapes. They come out weird. So I make an 8. "Mommy, make a 1!" After helping me make several more numbers, he started in on the alphabet. Here he is shaping an A.
He also loved brushing the dough with egg whites.And sprinkling on the seeds.Originally the plan was for Daddy-O to take these for snacks in his lunch. They never lasted that long. The recipe says to consume within 3 days. No problem.

Kiddo has even been begging me to do this again. I'll try not to have high expectations.

Friday Do-Over: Stick it to you!

First published 3/27/08
This is something Mom has previously written about on Kiddo's Art Blog, but it deserves a mention here as an excellent activity to keep the kids occupied for a bit of time.

Three Pain-free Steps:
1. Attach a length of contact paper, sticky side out to an easel, wall or window.
2. Make available a large quantity of collage type materials: papers, buttons, feathers, gems, poms, fabrics, etc.
3. Step Away

Since Kiddo is currently in a one-color-at-a-time phase, Mom extended the activity a bit by providing a box full of different colored materials so Kiddo could sort out the orange ones.

Handmade Wrapping Paper

Lots of birthday parties this winter! A simple, card-less way to label your gift: use low tack tape to write the child's name, initial or age. Madly color and scribble around the tape. Remove tape. Voilà!