I'm Baaaaaaack!

So after a much needed blogging silence. I am back and better than ever. I am going to take a new direction with my blog. I will feature great activity ideas to do with your children, wonderful recipes to cook with your children, etc. I want to create a community where we as mothers can encourage each other and help fill our days with things that enrich our children's lives.

The schedule will look something like this:

Sunday: Weekly Meal-Plan/Recipe of the Week
Tuesday: Activity Ideas
Thursday: Home How-To

I will mix in some other things here and there. I hope this is something that you enjoy and get ideas. Please submit feedback at any point and let me know if there are particular topics or ideas you want me to cover.

To start things off I am going to talk about planned activities with toddlers. In our house we encourage free play because I think that it fosters the development of a child's imagination. I love watching Belle slowly learn to play "pretend" because I can remember all the many adventures I took myself on. Belle goes to "school" on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I make a plan for activities on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Although I plan for those days sometimes things change and we don't do them those days or save things for Saturday with daddy. The best advice I can give is to not over plan and try to do too many activities at once. It is very important to remember the attention span and skill level of your child.

Last week our activities centered around apples. I try to adapt Belle's activities to supplement her school curriculum. They do so many fun things about fall so we are riding that theme out in our house. Last week we read a book called Under the Apple Tree. It is a very simple story about all the things that you can do/see under the apple tree. We then had an Apple Hunt where I hid two red and two green apples and we went hunting for them around the house. This activity incorporated counting and colors. Very simple but very entertaining for an almost two year old.

Another activity we enjoyed was an Apple Investigation. We took one of the red apples and one of the green apples and looked and felt the differences between the two. We talked about the color differences and texture differences. I then cut them into half where you could see the seeds and core. This allowed us to see what the inside of the apple looked like. I then cut the green and red apple into slices so we could smell and taste the differences between the red and green apples. This helped with learning about senses and differences. It also made for a great snack activity.

We are going to follow up this week with another book about apples. We are going to do Apple Stamping where you cut an apple in half and use them as stamps with paint. Belle and I also plan to make some Apple Chips for a snack activity. I will post some pictures at the end of the week.

I hope these ideas have inspired you. I love sitting down on Sunday and planning out some fun learning for the week. Another great resource is Productive Parenting. It is a website that will send you a daily age-appropriate activity email.

Stay Tuned:
Friday's Home How-To: Make Your Own Chalkboard.
P.S. I did lose the 10 lbs.!!