Here is something cute I found while trolling through YouTube the other day. I posted it here, thinking that other parents might like to sit their preschooler on their knee and let them watch this three-minute alphabet song. It was uploaded to YouTube by 1Ronledson, who according to his profile is 71 years old. The Zoo Animal ABC lists that it has had 4 1/2 million hits.

Play this song several times, then encourage your preschooler to sing along. There are many other alphabet songs for free on YouTube. If you find another that you think is especially cute, post the link in the comments section! This could be a page that you come back to again and again. Happy singing!

Related Reading:
A is for Apple
B is for Bugs!
C is for Cookie

Play Dough is a nice, quiet toy. It’s cheap, easy to make, and entertains children again and again. It’s also educational! It helps young children develop fine motor control (necessary for holding a pencil in school), eye-hand coordination, and stimulates the brain. Your child can let off some steam as he punches and pokes it. It can provide a science experience, if you talk with him while you make it. Ask him how it looked before and after you cooked it. It provides sensory experiences – as he smells it, touches it, sniffs it, and tastes it.

I like the purchased play doh just fine! It was originally created as a wall-paper cleaner in the 1930s. It wasn’t marketed as a children’s toy until the mid 1950s, and the recipe for it is still a secret. It is labeled non-toxic, yet it does contain a petroleum additive and borax, to prevent mold – and neither of those ingredients are non-toxic. It’s probably harmless enough in small doses, and children do eventually learn not to eat it. I like to keep a container of purchased play doh in my purse. It’s just great for those moments when you need to calm a whiny child. My favorite time to whip it out is when we’re waiting for food at a restaurant. My granddaughter plays with it with the restaurant silverware, and she’s happy until dessert!

Here’s a great recipe for making play dough at home. It’s cheaper than purchased play dough, and is a little softer to manage for younger hands. You can also make it in large quantities, or in a variety of colors. You can substitute different flavorings for the vanilla. I like almond flavoring with brown coloring, or banana flavoring with yellow. The flavorings will encourage your child to taste it, but it isn’t harmful in small amounts. There’s too much salt to let him gobble it down. But creating it with an interesting scent and taste is a good sensory experience for the young child.

Cooked Play Dough:
2 cup flour
1 cup salt
2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
2 cup water
1 TBSP vanilla
2 TBSP vegetable oil
food coloring

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a small pot. Add water and oil, stir well, then cook while stirring over medium heat until it is the consistency of thick mashed potatoes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla, and food coloring. Then knead on lightly floured counter until smooth. Children can play with it as soon as it is cool enough for them to touch. Store in an air-tight container or bag.

You can use unsweetened Kool-aide to color the play dough, and then you might skip the vanilla as well. Cherry Kool-Aide works great. The cream of tartar is the most expensive ingredient, but it is the preservative. If you skip it, the play dough will be gooey in a day or two. Try to find it at a warehouse store (Like Sam’s Club) or online, where you can get a larger container at a better price.

Edible Play Dough:
18 oz. jar of creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
3/4 cup non-fat dry milk

Mix all ingredients together. Have child wash hands first! Then he can play with this dough, and eat it. If it is too dry, add a little more honey. If it is too sticky, add more powdered milk. You can keep this in an air-tight container, or have child roll all of it into one-inch balls, roll the balls in shredded coconut or chopped nuts or powdered sugar, and eat! Makes a great, no-bake cookie (if your child isn’t allergic to nuts, of course).

Great Play Dough Toys:
children’s safety scissors
measuring cups
spoons
rolling pin
cookie cutters
muffin tin
toy doll dishes
Play-Doh: Fun Factory Deluxe Set
Melissa & Doug Shape, Model and Mold
Play-Doh Creativity Center
Play-Doh – Chomposaurus Playset

Related Articles:
Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts recipe
Home-Made Laundry Soap recipe
Home-made Baby Wipes recipe

Photo Credits:
Top: Barry Thomas
Bottom: Abigail Batchelder

Whether you consider yourself to be permissive or authoritarian in your child-rearing style, it’s certain that at some point you will tell your child, “no!” It is very likely that your child hears this word many times a day. We say “no” when a toddler is about to stick a penny in the electric outlet, or in his mouth. We say “no” to an energetic preschooler running towards the street. We say “no” to the young child who wants to stay up late and watch just one more show on television. Sometimes, it may seem that all we ever say is “no”! Is there a way to get around this? No. Probably not! But the point of this discussion is to encourage us to think, before we shout this overused and under-heard exclamation.

Recently, I was at Wal-mart Optical helping my husband pick out new frames when a family came by with three grade-school aged children. The youngest might have been six. He was sitting in the shopping cart, screaming at the top of his lungs with a shrill pitch that made everyone think he had blood pouring out his eyeballs. The problem? He didn’t want to get his frames repaired, he wanted new frames. The parents were bent over him, anxiously trying to please him so he’d be quiet. They used every word in the dictionary, except “No!” Now if you’ve ever read the Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies, then you know the right way to deal with this situation. You leave the store immediately. You do not placate a child in a tantrum, but neither should you subject the entire population of the store to his inappropriate behavior. You cannot reason with a child in a tantrum. You should not EVER give in to a child in a tantrum. Take him out to the car, take him home. Send him to his room, or his cry-rug, or his time-out corner. Then later, when he’s calmed down, you teach him.

That same day I was walking my dog, and saw a little two-year-old girl on the sidewalk, jumping up and down. She wore a sundress and lacey socks and shiny black shoes. Her wispy blonde hair was tugged back in a pony tail, but precious strands had come loose and were floating on the breeze with her enthusiasm. It was a joyous, carefree moment. But her father squelched it instantly, yelling “No! Don’t do that. Can’t you just walk like normal people?”

Both sets of parents did not know the correct use of the word. Both had failed to understand children, or the role of the parent. In both families there were hurt feelings and a lack of communication between adult and child.

So when do you say no?

As little as possible, and only when it’s absolutely necessary. If you say it all the time, your child will learn to tune you out. The best way to change your habit of overusing the word “no” is to just stop and think a moment before you speak.

Here are some examples:

Your child is at the playground, trying to climb UP the slide. Every child does it. Most adults tell them not to. Is he going to hurt himself? Probably not. Is he hurting others? Not usually. Is he going to break the slide? Definitely not. So why not let him? This was a major peeve of mine when I worked at preschools and day care centers. There were sooooo many rules regarding the playground equipment! Children could not climb up the slides, they could not come down on their bellies. They could not come down head first. Walk up these stairs only. Walk down those stairs only. Don’t jump from the second to the bottom stair. Argh! Companies have been designing and developing playground equipment, trying to make them so safe that children can’t possibly get hurt (yeah, right, where there’s a will, there’s a way!) and still we feel compelled to restrict their creativity and imagination with a list of rules that would make the IRS cringe.

Your child is at the beach throwing sand. Do you really need to say “no?” Why do children like to throw sand? I don’t have a clue, but they ALL do it! They like to throw. Recently my granddaughter amused herself for nearly thirty minutes by picking up the annoying large green pods of the black walnuts and tossing them into the dumpster. She shrieked gleefully, “I won! I won!” every time she heard the satisfying thunk of the nut striking the heavy metal container. But we don’t like it when our children throw sand. We don’t want others to think our child is undisciplined. So we yell at our child (why not yell at the other people?) and threaten to take them home this minute if they don’t stop throwing sand! The last time I took my granddaughter to the beach, I tried a different tactic. The beach was not crowded. There was not a strong wind to carry the sand. I told her she could stand at the edge of the water and throw sand into the water, but not to throw it at anybody. I also warned her that she might get sand in her eyes. Then I left it up to her to discover. She gleefully threw fistfuls of sand into the waves for all of five minutes. That was it. She’d had her fun, and was ready to go on to another activity.

Suppose your child wants a piece of birthday cake for breakfast, and you want to tell him no, he needs to eat cereal. Is there really any less sugar in that box of honey-yummy-crunchies than the cake? It became a beloved tradition in my family, that the morning after a birthday, everyone could have cake for breakfast if they wanted to. And I rarely bought sugary honey-yummy-crunchies anyway. I am not in favor of letting children eat sugary sweets, but it is much easier just to NOT keep them in the house than to try to explain to a three year old why we only eat chocolate covered grahams after we’ve had a nutritious breakfast.

Another way to get around overusing “no” is to have clearly defined rules. I’ll go into more details about rules in another post, but for now, know that if you have a set bedtime, and your child asks to stay up late, you can just ask him the rule. “What is the rule in this house about bedtime?” Then the child can answer his own question. You’re not the big meanie saying “No”. Your child is learning to live by a set of rules, which is absolutely necessary to live in a society.

So remember, think before you answer. Do you really have to use the word “no”? If the answer is yes, then do it! Say it once. Say it with authority. Do not repeat yourself. If it seems appropriate at the time, you can explain to your child why you must say no. If your child throws a tantrum, then you discipline the tantrum. You do not change your “no” to a “yes”. If your child accepts the “no” well, praise him! Tell him how proud you are that he listened to you.

The more you can step back and allow your child to explore his world, the more you allow him to develop his innate creativity.

Related Reading:
Playground Safety: Cautious or Zealous?
Reduce or Eliminate Tantrums
Mastering the Nap

Books by Others:
Ten Days to a Less Defiant Child
Parenting with Love and Logic

Photo Credits:
Tantrum: Saad Aktar
Up the Slide: Kissy Face
Throwing Sand: CarbonNYC

Have you taught your child to sing? Music is an integral part of the young child’s experience. It doesn’t matter if you croak like a frog or Frankie Sinatra – just open your mouth and sing from the heart.

In the lesson plans I include four or five songs for you to teach your child. Some of them aren’t actually singable, but are instead “finger-plays” – a type of chant, usually rhyming, and always using finger and hand motions. Twos and threes especially enjoy finger-plays – think of the “Ensy-Wensy Spider” if you’re still not sure what I’m talking about, although that one is set to music.

Any child can learn to sing! It is easier than learning to play violin or piano, and Dr. Suzuki’s method has shown the world thousands upon thousands of tiny children who have learned to play either instrument with sensitivity and beauty. Singing is as easy as talking – you just talk on pitch!

Here is a precious news cast about a seven year old girl who brings joy to the lives of others through her beautiful, God-given talent. ReverbNation places her at the top of the chart for Christian Gospel singers. She filmed a scene for a new movie due to be released next fall, “Machine Gun Preacher”, about a drug-dealer turned Christian, who dedicates the rest of his life to saving children in war-torn areas.

The point here isn’t that we should push our children to excel, but rather that your child has the capability within him to do great things. It is up to you to provide a warm, safe environment and the freedom for him to explore and discover his own innate talent.

May you find your heart uplifted by this lovely little girl. I went straight to her website and ordered her CD for my mom!

May God bless you and your family,

Lorelei

Sand might be called the world’s most perfect toy. It is natural, readily available, generally affordable, and will provide hundreds of hours of enjoyment for your children and grandchildren. If you’re on a limited budget, the backyard sandbox should be the first thing you build, before a swing set or climber. Many families like to put the swing set and climber directly IN the sandbox, but I recommend that you don’t. First off, sand isn’t the softest thing a child could land on when he falls. It would be better to place wood chips, pea gravel, or recycled rubber under the swings. Secondly, children like to travel. If they have a sandbox in one area and a climber in another, they have two play spaces. Besides, if you have more than one child, naturally one is going to want to build a sand castle when the other would rather jump on top of it. Two play spaces is definitely better than one!

Select an area in your yard for the sandbox. Place it towards the back of the yard, so much of the sand falls off your child’s shoes (or bare feet) and clothing before he makes it to the door. Place it where you can see it from a window, but not too close to the fence. Find an area that is mostly flat, and gets shade for part of the day, unless you are planning to build an awning over of the box.

Think BIG! Build the biggest box your budget and your yard will allow. Ten-feet square is a nice size for two or three children. Mark out the area, then remove the grass and dig down. Sinking the box down into the ground will help keep the sand in the box and not blowing around in your child’s eyes on a windy day. It also helps prevent grass from growing up through the sand. Once you’ve dug the area out, level it as best you can, then loosely spread landscape fabric and staple it into the ground. This allows water to drain, but blocks weeds from sprouting.

You can build your box walls out of boards, or landscape timbers, or landscape blocks, or old tractor tires, or old splash pools, or any other material you can think of that is not toxic to your children. (Do not use pressure treated lumber, for that reason!) You don’t even have to use any walls at all, but fill the dirt hole up with sand. However, most sandboxes do have wooden sides, and some even have wooden benches for little bodies to sit on.

Finally, fill the box with sand. Many recommend buying play sand in 50 pound bags. It would take a lot of bags to fill a large sandbox! Washed sand is the same thing as play sand, and can be bought in bulk. Washed sand is free from dust and debris, weighs about 2700 pounds per cubic yard, and is tan in color.

Six Methods to Discourage Cats from Using Your Sandbox

Most websites recommend covering the sandbox to prevent cats from dirtying it, but I always felt that covers were unwieldly and limited how much use the sandbox would see. Small children can’t move the cover by themselves. There are a number of cat deterrents that may work just as well.

1) electric fencing. If you have a tall backyard fence, then run a string of electric wire across the top of the fence out of your child’s reach. No cat will cross it.

2) Keep a non-cat friendly dog in the yard. However, although the dog might not mess in the sand, he will still leave calling cards somewhere in your child’s play area.

3) Scarecrow Sprinklers are motion sensitive and hooked up to a garden hose. They will blast unwanted pests with water, but not harm them. (Of course, teach your child to turn it off, or it will blast him, as well!)

4) Motion-activated pet deterrent uses a high-pitched sound and blast of air to send cats on their way, without water. Great for indoors, too.

5 Smells. Some smells are offensive to cats, even when humans can’t smell them at all, such as the wintergreen scent of Keep Away. Other homemade cat deterrent sprays use a variety of herbs and spices like lavendar, cayanne pepper, rosemary, or citronella. These sprays will last up to two weeks, but need to be reapplied regularly.

6) Texture. Cats don’t like to walk on certain bristly, rough-textured products like pine cones or gravel. You can surround your sandbox with a wide ring of shredded coconut shell mulch, and it may stop most cats.

If none of these methods work for you, then a web search should reveal more than fifty other options. Something will work. Of course, you could just cover your sandbox. I’d suggest screen instead of tarp for covering the box. You want the rain to wash the sand clean, rather than the damp dark tarp to keep the sand the right temperature and humidity for breeding bacteria.

Finally, you’ll want sandbox toys! Rotating the toys periodically will keep the interest level high. After spending all that time making the sandbox for your child, the best reward would be watching him enjoy it! So, for younger children, keep a supply of plastic measuring cups and spoons, small plastic cars, and play figurines will provide many hours of enjoyable, educational activity. As your child grows, add sand pails and sturdy shovels, then construction trucks like a dump truck and a steam shovel or back hoe. Children can bury things in the sand for scavenger hunts, or sculpt sand into interesting shapes with the addition of a little water. And sand can still be played with in the fall, even though the beaches are closed and it’s too cold to take off a jacket! There is a small window in the northern states when the sand simply freezes – effectively ending the sandy season for a little while.

Don’t forget, children model us. If you want your child to reap all the benefits of sand play, play with him in the sandbox! Once he sees how important you realize sand play is, he will play in the sand more. So what if he gets a little dirty? That before-bedtime bath is a great way to wind down from an exciting, educational day of play.

For further reading:
Sensory Play
Water Play
Working with Wood
Sand Castle

Photo Credits:
Top: amrufm
Middle: tammra
Bottom: bruno brujah

How do you wake up in the morning? Are you often tired, depressed, or apathetic? Maybe you long for just a few more minutes of sleep… Wouldn’t it be great to wake up with enthusiasm, energy and even joy!

How are your days, after you’ve managed to get your eyes to stay open? Are you doing what you love, and do you love what you’re doing? Do you feel successful, empowered, fulfilled?

Setting Goals is the Best Way to Achieve Them

Goal-setting is the key to a successful life. You can’t “get there” if you don’t know where “there” is!

Another part of goal-setting, though, is making positive affirmations. We all have enough negativity in our lives. Our parents and relatives may have started it, unknowingly, by telling us what we can’t do. Some of it was important – “you can’t run across the street without holding a grown-up’s hand.” Some of it was crippling – “you can’t do that, that’s absurd, who ever heard of a grown person doing that for a living!” Think carefully before you speak to your child. Allow him the pleasure of his dreams!

Give Yourself a Pep Talk Every Morning

Being a positive person is as simple as deciding that you want to be a positive person. Whenever you feel a negative thought pop into your head, stop yourself! Consciously change your negative thought to a positive one. Then say three or four positive things in a row, and don’t forget to grin. Not just a wimpy little lift-the-corner-of-your-lip half-smirk, but a big, wide, show-all-your teeth grin! Learn to embrace life, and to enjoy it! Your children will reap the benefits. They live by your example. They will learn to be positive thinkers. They will learn to set goals and not only achieve them, but far surpass them!

If you don’t think you know how to be positive, here is a little four-year-old girl to teach you. The first words she says are, “I can be a SARK.” There was a lot of discussion on the internet about what she meant by that. Some thought she was being imaginative, and saying she could be a “shark”, but her speech is actually very clear. I think she meant to say, “I can be a SARK.” SARK, or Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, is the author of several uplifting, positive thinking, self-empowering books for children and adults, including “Make Your Creative Dreams Real.”

So, watch this adorable video. Read great books, and fill your life with uplifting, encouraging, positive friends. Limit the time you spend around the nay-sayers in your life, for they will only drag you down. You owe it to yourself to live life fully and abundantly.

Great books to read:
The Holy Bible
Make Your Creative Dreams Real
Succulent Wild Woman
SARK’s Journal and PlayBook
The Secret
See You At the Top

A great website, to learn more about setting goals and achieving them:
www.goalsmentor.com

Today’s post is written by a friend and mentor, Shanna Beaman. She is the creator of www.emomsblog.com and www.goalsmentor.com. She is a happily married mother of two, who has found a balance between work and family. I met her at the beginning of my blogging career, and we have encouraged and supported one another as we learned to express ourselves in this new medium. Her special niche is teaching others how to reach their goals. I hope you enjoy the following article as much as I have, and that you’ll put it to good use!

Dusting Off Your Dreams
by Shanna Beaman

When your children nap or start kindergarten, take some time for yourself to dust off your dreams.

As a mother or a father, giving 100% of yourself to your family is natural and you love and enjoy every minute of it. There does come a time when you have time to think about doing something for yourself, your future, and the future of your family.

What are your goals and dreams? What do you aspire to or hope for? Goals help turn these “wishes” into reality. You can have what you desire with some planning and that is what goal setting is all about. Goal setting gives you the necessary confidence you need to know that you can have anything in life that you want.

What is a goal?

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Why should you set goals?

Goals give you direction; they give you a road map. You can’t arrive at a specific destination if you don’t know where you are going. When you know where you are going you will stop driving around in circles and head straight for your destination.

Goals create enthusiasm. Enthusiasm comes from within and when you have a goal, you have a purpose. Every day when you awaken you are excited to get up because you know where you are going and you are getting closer to reaching your dreams!

Goals make you happy. Your mind is alive because it has something encouraging to focus on. Goals help eliminate negative thoughts and discontentment.

Goals help you overcome obstacles. Obstacles are what you see when you take your sites off your goals, so if you don’t have goals, you’re forced to focus on obstacles.

Goals give you discipline. Goals make you mind yourself. Instead of just going through your everyday actions, now you will be asking yourself “Is this action taking me closer to or farther away from my goals?”

Goals give you confidence. When you have clearly defined and written goals, you move toward those goals with unshakable confidence. You don’t let anything get in your way.

If goals are such a great thing then why don’t more people set them? The only reasons that seem reasonable are that people don’t know how and/or they just don’t understand the importance of setting goals.

How do you set goals?

You write them down using these key factors:

• Your goals must be written in a present, positive state as if you have already achieved your goal.
• Your goal must be measurable, attainable and tangible.
• You must have a deadline, a timeframe, in place for when you will reach that goal.
• You must list the obstacles and the solutions to overcome the obstacles you may encounter.
• You must reward yourself when you reach predetermined milestones or when you reach your goal.

It is imperative that your goals incorporate these factors in order to be effective.

Be sure you set goals in every area of your life. A balanced life is a good life. The areas in which to set goals for are:

• Physical and health
• Financial
• Family and relationship
• Spiritual
• Educational and mental

Get serious about doing something for yourself. Writing down your goals and having a purpose to achieve your goals will benefit not only you, but your family and others around you.

by: Shanna Beaman

For more information on setting goals, visit: www.goalsmentor.com

Photo Credits:
Reaching the top: D. Sharon Pruit
I made it! D. Sharon Pruit

“Love, Laughter and the Lord.”
I just watched the most amazing video on youtube! A couple in their nineties giving a piano duet at Mayo Clinic! They were fantastic, adorable, energetic, and wonderful role models.

When I think of being ninety, I’m not usually so enthusiastic. I think of myself being old, infirm, and maybe a burden to others. I picture the forgotten generation drooling away in nursing homes wearing disposable underwear. It’s not a bright future at all. But then along comes someone – two someones – a couple who have been married for more than six decades, to show me that my future has not yet been written! It will be whatever I make of it.

Marlow and Frances Cowan believe that the secret to their longevity is love, laughter and the Lord. I encourage you to watch their performance. It won’t take long. And I bet you won’t be able to keep from smiling! By embedding this darling video to my webpage, I’ll be able to watch it again, whenever I feel the need of a happy-gram.

Find what makes you happy. Share all your love. Live every day as if it might be your last. Then when you are old, you will have no regrets… only wonderful memories.
Lorelei