When the weather turns cold, rain changes to snow. Sometimes snow is wet and sloppy, sometimes it is dry and powdery. We like to play in snow, making snow angels or snow men. When snow melts, it turns back into water. We wear extra clothing to keep warm in winter. Polar bear and penguins are animals that live in cold areas. No two snowflakes are exactly alike. Water freezes to make ice. Ice melts to make water.

If you live where it snows in the winter, you have a wonderful opportunity to teach your child! Winter can mean being stuck inside for months on end, depressed by the lack of sunlight, chapped hands, cracked lips, miserable, cantankerous children, OR… it can mean hot chocolate, snowball fights, adorable snowmen, ruddy cheeks, rosy lips, sparkling eyes, and cozy fires. It’s your choice. Love where you are, and live life to it’s fullest.

Winter isn’t fun when you’re cold. Our parents and grandparents knew about long underwear. Now, no one wears them. We prefer to crank up the thermostat and complain about high heating bills. Dress warmly. Dress your child warmly. Wear long johns around the house, and slippers or shoes instead of going barefoot. Keep the thermostat between 65 and 68 – you’ll save money and do your bit for the environment, as well.

When you send your child outside, always dress him completely. It doesn’t matter if you’re just running to the store for a gallon of milk. You never know when you might be stuck in traffic, or experience car trouble. A small child can suffer hypothermia very quickly. The American Academy of Pediatrics advices to dress children in one more layer than you as an adult would wear. This may include:

• thermal long johns
• turtlenecks
• one or two shirts
• pants
• sweater
• coat
• warm socks
• boots
• gloves or mittens
• hat

This week, you and your child will make snowmen, stage a snowball fight, go sledding down a small hill, and roast marshmallows over a campfire at the park. Enjoy the season! It will all be over soon enough.

If you’re new to this blog, you may wish to read:
Using the lesson plans
Calendar Activities
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity

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Snow and Ice Week Lesson Plans

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The young child can recognize words before he can physically write them. His eyesight isn’t quite 20/20 yet, though, so all words should be written fairly large. If you’re sitting really close to him, two inches is probably okay. Smaller than that, and you’re making it much harder for him than it needs to be, and may cause him eye-strain.

The small muscles in his hands and fingers are not fully developed, and his coordination is off. So anything you can do to give him lots of practice using those small muscles can only help. Let him play with playdough, string beads, lace shoestrings through a lacing card, play with legos, and cut with child safety scissors while supervised, to name a few.

Next, teach him to recognize his name. Print his name in large block letters – one capital letter, and the rest lower-case letters, the way he will see it written in school. Do not write it all in caps. Put his name on his bedroom door, at his place at the table, where he hangs his coat – any place you can think of putting it. You can start teaching him to read other words, too, if you like – any word that he finds interesting- print them in large letters on 4×6 index cards.

Next, have him roll playdough snakes and have him form the letters that make his name. You can print his name on cardboard and let him “trace” the name with playdough snakes. Later, let him make his name without the tracing card.

Spritz shaving cream on a cookie sheet, and let him draw his name in the cream. Supervise him, if you don’t want shaving cream everywhere, but this activity may amuse him for 15 to 20 minutes, and it’s educational, too. I let my granddaughter do similar supervised educational activities at the kitchen table while I do dishes or fix a meal. She’s having fun, she’s close by, and I know what she’s up to.

Let him fingerpaint his name, using a large sheet of paper and his favorite color of paint.

Let him draw his name in wet sand or mud.

Let him try to write his name with sidewalk chalk.

Finally, you can print off his name at a website like Kid Zone, and let him trace his name over and over. If you slip the paper in a page protector or laminate it, and get a dry erase marker, he can practice it and wipe it clean to reuse.

He’ll eventually graduate from dry-erase markers, to thick crayons, to pencils. But don’t rush him to writing with a pencil too soon. Let him develop the coordination first, and experience success at every step along the way.

Lorelei

For further reading, you may wish to read:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Reading Readiness
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity

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Some children develop the habit of chewing on their fingernails. Maybe they do it because they have frequent hangnails or split nails that are annoying them. Maybe they observe a parent or caregiver do it, and they are simply imitating a learned behavior. But for many children, it is believed that biting nails is a form of stress relief.

Why should we care? Is it really something we should concern ourselves over? That is a question only you can answer. If it doesn’t bug you, then go ahead and ignore it. Generally, most kids outgrow this habit about the time that it starts to bother them.

However, there are a number of reasons why you should care, why it should bother you, why you should try to help your child break himself from his chewing habit.

1. children’s hands touch a lot of things! They are dirty! Think of all the bacteria they are ingesting every time they bite their nails!
2. Chewed fingernails can become stuck between teeth or under the gums, spreading bacteria and leading to cavities and gum disease.
3. torn nails and damaged skin are breeding grounds for bacteria. The nail bed can become infected. The the whole finger can become inflamed.
4. compulsive nail biting in young children can lead to deformed teeth
5. Lead is found in higher concentrations among nailbiters than the general public. Lead poisoning can significantly lower I.Q. levels.
6. Adults who continue to chew their nails are less productive than their non-gnawing counterparts.

So, if you have a chewer in the family, there are several things you can try to help them stop.

First, keep a record of every time you see your child bite his nails. What is he doing? Does he bite his nails every time he watches TV? Or only when Aunt Lulu comes to visit? Does he chew when he’s in church, or trying to fall asleep? Knowing when he bites may help you understand WHY he bites.

If he’s chewing away while watching T.V., then it’s just a mindless habit. Getting him to stop may be no harder than helping him find something else to occupy his hands. You can keep drawing paper, pencils and crayons near the T.V. and encourage him to draw instead. With an older child, you could try teaching them to knit or crochet. A child who mindlessly chews his nails is also a child who may start to mindlessly eat – so finding a better thing to do with his hands could save him from a weight problem in the future.

Does your child bite when when she is scared, worried, frightened, intimidated, or otherwise experiencing stress? This is believed to be the main reason why people – child and adult alike – chew their nails. Help your child understand why she’s biting her nails. Help her verbalize what’s upsetting her. Help her discuss it. Sometimes just acknowledging that a child is under stress is enough to help them overcome it. Children experience a lot of emotions, but they lack any understanding of those emotions. They may not know that it is actually okay to be mad!

Teach your child what emotions are. Help him verbalize them all. If you see him throwing toys and screaming, tell him, “I see that you are angry. It is okay to be angry. It is not okay to throw toys and scream in the house, but it is okay to be angry. Can you think of something better to do when you get like this? What if you went outside and pounded nails into a log?” (Or whatever activity you feel would be a good way to release stress).

If your child only seems to gnaw away when his nails are rough and annoying him, then make a manicure part of the nightly bath routine. Trim his nails, file them smooth. Teach him how to wash beneath the nails with a nail brush. Help him learn to use an emory board to sooth away ragged edges. Rub a bit of moisturizer into the nail and cuticle every night. If your yougster would like it, try painting on some nail polish. Help her to see her nails as something pretty, rather than something delicious.

Many people have found a cure in a bottle. They buy products that make the nail taste bad to discourage biting. Now there are natural products that you can use, that won’t poison your little one. One product uses pepper and citric acid. Another uses a blend of bitter-tasting vitamins and minerals. Some websites say NOT to use these products unless your child is eager and willing to stop this habit. I wonder why? Is it not “good parenting” to teach our children? We teach our children to brush their teeth and to hold our hand before crossing the street. We don’t ask them if they mind having their teeth clean or if they object to surviving to walk across the street another day! I say “hog wash”. If your child is a biter, and you want to stop this habit, then try every product on the market until something works!

If you found a way to break your child of this habit that is not mentioned here, please share it! We look forward to hearing from you.

If you are new here, you may want to read:
Ten steps to boost your child’s creativity
Vitamin Deficiencies in Children
Play areas for encouraging creativity in Children

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• Christmas is Jesus’ birthday!
• Each week we light a new candle on the advent wreathe, as we count down the days until Christmas.
• There are many things we can do to get ready for this special holiday.
• Some people pray and fast.
• Some people decorate their homes with lights, greenery, ribbons, and more.
• Some people are very poor, and cannot afford gifts. We remember them at this time.
• Many people give gifts to each other, just as the Wise Men gave gifts to Baby Jesus.

There may be more that you would like to teach your young child, depending on your religious affiliation. Do you want to include Santa Clause in your family traditions? Would you like to help your child buy a gift to donate to a poor family, or volunteer at a soup kitchen? What about singing carols at a nursing home, or for an elderly church member?

Kids can get so hyped up, that their behavior is atrocious this time of year. Starting in October, they were excited for Halloween. As soon as that ended, there was Thanksgiving, and even before the turkey was done baking, Christmas lights were up and carols playing on the radio. Is it any wonder that our normally sweet-natured little one becomes a greedy little brat every time he sees a man in a Santa suit?

There is much you can do to try to tone this down. Help your child focus on giving, rather than the toys he’s going to get. Help him sort through his toys in preparation for Christmas, cleaning out the ones that he no longer needs. Throw away broken toys, or repair and donate them if possible.

This week you’ll help your child make an “Advent” chain – add as many links in the paper chain as there are days left until Christmas. Then, every morning, tear off one more chain. Help him count the remaining chains (good math activity). When the last chain is torn, it will be Christmas. You could make the last chain a special color – white, perhaps, and all the others alternating red and green.

Many families won’t put the Christ Child in the Nativity set until Christmas Eve. They’ll get the set out, dust it off, and set it up, but have the statues of Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and wise men all looking at an empty manger. This, too, can help the child understand the concept of advent – of waiting for the coming of Our Lord.

Have fun this week! Your child will make some pretty decorations for the house. Together, you’ll bake Christmas cookies, and maybe you’ll even put up your tree, if you haven’t already. Send in a picture to share! We’d all love to see the pretty things your child has made.

Advent Lesson Plans

All of the books recommended in this week’s lesson plans can be found at your local library, or in my store.

For further reading:
Building Family through Tradition
Children in Church
Working with the Lesson Plans

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Your child can learn: Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful. Today many people celebrate it by eating a big dinner with friends and family. Many families eat turkey, vegetables, and pumpkin pie. Many years ago, the Pilgrims at Plymouth and the Wampanoag Indians celebrated a thanksgiving feast together. The pilgrims were thankful for the help of the Wampanoag, and their good friend Squanto, a Patuxet Indian, who gave them seeds and taught them how to plant them.

If you are traveling, you may not be able to do all the activities, but print them off and bring them with you, along with some materials for the craft projects. Your child, and any nieces and nephews at the family gathering, may enjoy the activities. Be flexible, but at the same time, try to stick as closely to your child’s routine as possible. If you don’t, temper tantrums and tears may be the only thing anyone remembers.

Be careful not to perpetuate misleading stereotypes. Not all Indians lived in wigwams, wore buckskin, or carried their babies in cradleboards. If you wish to teach your child about American Indians, it is better to teach about several different tribes and how their customs varied, than to teach “All American Indians are “this”.

One thing I discovered during my research before writing this lesson or this blog, is that the term “Native American” is no longer considered politically correct. It isn’t exactly “wrong” but it is considered insulting by many of the American Indian peoples. Native American is a generic term that encompasses not only all of the North American tribes, but also the people of the American Samoas, the original Hawaiians, the Inuits, the Aleuts, and those incorrectly labeled “Eskimos” -the Upiks and Inupiats. I read that the North American Indians prefer to be called “American Indian”.

I also learned that Columbus did not label them “Indian” because he thought he’d reached India! That was a myth perpetuated by our public schools. Europe didn’t call India “India” until several hundred years AFTER Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Columbus would have called India “Hindustan”. He knew he was in a new land, and he called the native peoples he met “En Dios” – which translates as “In with God”.

For more information, visit
American Indian Culture
Teaching young children about Native Americans

If you are new to this website, you may wish to read:
Working with the Lesson Plans
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity
Calendar Activities

Thanks for visiting, and I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Lesson Plans: Thanksgiving!

All of the books recomended in this week’s lessons can be found at your library, or in my store.

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The worst meal of the day for families with young children is definitely dinner time. Moms and dads are tired. One or both of them just got home from work. They’re eager to get dinner over with, so they can get their screaming tots into the bath, then into bed, before they can finally take a break. And the worst, absolutely the worst thing either of them can do is engage in a power struggle with that child over what food passes between his lips. Once a parent demands that they clean up their plate, it is no longer an issue of health and nutrition. This is a battle of wills, and one the parent cannot win. If the child does eat, he’s not forming healthy, happy eating habits. If he doesn’t eat, the parent will either cave in, or be forced to discipline the child, which can lead to life-long eating disorders.

So end the meal time battle right now, and try a few of the following alternatives.

• Eliminate all refined sugar from your child’s diet. Sugar is not nutritious, but when your child eats even just a little sugar, it changes his palate, and he’ll crave sugary foods even more. He won’t want to eat anything that isn’t sweet. It takes a few weeks to break the sugar addiction, but once you do, you’ll really appreciate how much better all your other food tastes. Natural sugar found in fruit is fine – in moderation, of course.
• Establish specific meal times, and stick to the plan. Write down what time you eat breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. Serve them at the same time every day. Keep them about three hours apart, with NO SNACKING in between. Your child is more likely to eat if he comes to the dinner table hungry.
• Provide plenty of activity during your child’s day. See that he has time to run and play outside, dance, jump, ride a tricycle, throw a ball, climb, hop, crawl, and turn somersaults. Don’t raise a couch potato. If your child is burning calories, he’ll need to refuel at the dinner table.
• Serve more raw foods, more individual foods, and fewer casseroles. It is not uncommon for a little child to like to eat carrots, corn, green beans, and peas, but refuse to eat “veg-all” with all of those vegetables mixed in together. Remember when your young child was still an infant, you might have fed him a jar of peas and a jar of apricots for a meal, but you probably didn’t feed him a jar of lasagna.



• Set the table. Eat at the table. Don’t serve dinner in the car – ever – if possible! Use a tablecloth sometimes. Set out special plates. Use cloth napkins. Light the candles. Make dinner fun! Play Italian music when you serve pizza, or Mexican music when you have tacos.
• Go on a picnic. No matter what the season, you can take a picnic outdoors. My dad used to love winter picnics. I can remember him bringing a broom to wipe the snow off the picnic tables in the park. We’d have thermoses of hot soup and cocoa. You could build a fire in the fire pit or charcoal grill and toast marshmallows.
• Who said picnics have to be outside? Once in a while, take a picnic to the living room. Spread a vinyl tablecloth over the carpet, and serve your favorite picnic fare on the floor. Maybe the teddy bears could join you for this picnic?
• be realistic about what you expect your young child to eat. His stomach is only about the size of his fist. Make his servings MUCH smaller! Half of one slice of bread is a serving for the 2 – 5 year old child, yet if you make him a sandwich, he’s getting four times that amount! For many fruits, a serving size is only 2 Tablespoons – not the whole banana. It’s better to get him to eat two grapes, then ask for more,than to overwhelm him with a whole bunch.
• Plan mealtime conversations. Instead of talking about what he is or isn’t eating, or yelling at him to clean up his plate, engage him in conversation about his day. Ask what he did, what he enjoyed, what he learned. There are whole websites devoted to encouraging pleasant mealtime conversations for the family. (See a few listed at the end of this article).
• If your child still does not eat his supper, he can still sit at the table with the family until they are all finished. He is part of the family, and mealtimes is an important time to build relationships. After dinner, he will NOT be allowed any snacks. It won’t hurt him to go to bed hungry once in a while. In fact, no one should be eating after dinner. The after-dinner snack is a terrible habit to get in to, and if you or your child are not waking up hungry for breakfast it could be because too much food was consumed too close to bedtime the night before. Breakfast is supposed to be ‘breaking the fast” – not just throwing another log on the hot coals of a slow-burning metabolism.



What a big, beautiful smile! Wouldn’t you love to see this at your dinner table every night? Why can’t mealtimes be the highlight of the day? With a little planning, patience, and ingenuity, it can be!

Check out the book, Table Talk, Creating Meaningful Conversation with Family and Friends, now available in my store.

Table Talk websites:
Table Topics for Kids
Table Talk, How Mealtime Chatter Strengthens the Family
Family Table Talk Information

Related Reading:
Feeding the Finicky Eater

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