Lowes/Home Depot Kids Program

Both Lowes and Home Depot have kids programs on Saturday mornings. Kids are given an apron, safety goggles, a kids size hammer and a kit to make a wooden toy. They hammer it together, and add stickers to decorate. When they finish a project, they get a certificate to take home and a badge to glue onto their apron.

Kids get to use real tools to create a cool project, all while following directions provided (with pictures for non-readers!), following safety rules (watch where that hammer is going!), and using fine motor skills (to pick up those tiny pieces). The constant hammering is a little annoying to listen to, so get grandpa to take them if at all possible!

Bonus: Its free!

Click here to see it in action

(see what I mean about the noise level in there!?)

Lost and Found

"Stuff" being left all over the house has become a problem. I am constantly stepping on little random toys and other junk that Levi has accumulated.

After leaving his shoes at the rec center, Levi collected them from the lost and found box the following week. On the box was a sign stating that items not picked up after a certain time would be donated. This gave me a great idea which we put into use at our house.

Random stuff I find around, goes into the box. And I explained to Levi that it is his responsibility to check the box frequently and decide what he wants to keep or give away. If he wants to keep it, it needs to go back where it belongs (anywhere else and it goes right back into the box). Items he doesn't want, go into a bag in the garage along with outgrown clothes and other give aways. When it gets full, we donate the bag.

He understands that 'give away' items are given to someone else who needs them, and he will not see them again (there are no 'take backs' from the give away bag!). Often he chooses something to donate (sometimes something no one would want, but I don't tell him that!)

This system has worked surprisingly well - Levi notices right away if something is in there and takes care of it.

Rolling and folding Napkins

I love activities that take only a few seconds to set up, and this is one of them!

Here Levi is rolling napkins (an 'unpaper' towel actually). The trick is to roll it tightly enough so that he can put it in the napkin ring. Not an easy task for a 3yr old!

We have also done napkin folding - initially by drawing 'fold lines' on a napkin with a sharpie (or you can stitch the lines), and showing him step-by-step how to fold one demonstrating with my own napkin. Then I leave the sample for him to look at, and let him try it without help.

Levi also can set the table - folding napkins, counting the correct number of forks/spoons/knives, and putting them on the table. Still working on correct placement, but he manages to put one of each utensil on top of a napkin at each place setting, which is good enough for our family!

The Letter 'T'

Here Levi is doing a shape activity, I just traced popsicle sticks so he could match them up. We counted corners, and sides and compared the two shapes.
I also did a similar activity where I put colored dots on the end of the popsicle sticks, matching colors would make a shape!

Brushing teeth! We used an old toothbrush to brush 'teeth' to make them white and clean! We talked about WHY it is important to brush your teeth, and how to make sure to brush them all.

Outdoor time - we looked at all the different trees around our house, did some tree rubbings (which we later made into a little book), and pretended to be a tree!

Arts and crafts tree - popsicle stick for the trunk, strip of paper for the grass and crumpled tissue paper for leaves. Discussed the parts of a tree as well (he already knew them though)

Another activity Levi initiated was with his trains. He took my small ironing board and made a ramp to race them down. I found some poker chips that we used to mark where the trains landed, and compared different trains, and then different angles of the ramp. This kept him entertained for a looong time, but because he was using my ironing board I couldnt get much sewing done without it!

T is for:
trees
toes
teeth
ten
tomato
tiger
train
triangle
tractor

The Letter S

S is for:
snake
sweep
sleep
sing
sand
sun
star
sorting



Here Levi is practicing sweeping. He is to sweep the beans into the blue square, and then carefuly pour them into the black container. This is quite a challange!

I got Levi some dot markers, and this is the first time he used them. He got the idea right away and compleated the task in a very short time. Next time I am going to try to encourage him to start from the top of the letter and work his way down, because this time he did the middle first, then the top, then the bottom.

Sand play - here he is filling an ice cube tray with sand. He also has a letter 's' stencil which he used to practice tracing the shape of an 's' in the sand.

This is a snake cutting activity. First he decorated it, and then Levi had to concentrate in order to cut the spiral shape to make his snake. Once cut out, we glued a tounge and googly eyes on where I had drawn the dots, and attached a string to the center for hanging.

I'm not sure what these pegs are called, but they look similar to thumbtacks only they are plastic. They can be placed into the plastic board which is full of holes. To get them out, you push them from the other side (and it helps to hold it over the storage box so they don't go flying!). I simply drew the letter 'S' onto the board with a whiteboard marker, which wiped off when he was done.

I've had this peg set sense I was a little kid!

Baked Onion Rings

Chef No Pants

Baked Onion Rings

panko

mojave seasoning (or whatever seasoning you'd like)

1 egg

milk (we use almond)

1 sweet onion

Cut the onion into rings. Mix the egg with a little milk. Mix the panko with seasoning, to taste.

Dip in the egg, 'shake shake shake' to get the drip off. Dip in panko mixture and pat more on as needed. Put on cookie sheet.

Bake 400 degrees, about 10min, flip and 10min more.

Levi could do every step of this process, I just had to remind him to shake the egg off! These were yummy and healthier than the fried kind!

Snow mess!

This was a GIANT mess but Levi had fun!
We got something in the mail packed in peanuts (the foam kind, unfortunatly), and Levi broke them into bits and spread them around the kitchen. This kept him entertained for a while!
We used it as a life skill practice though, clean up after yourself! It was a challange for him to use his brush and pan to sweep all this up, but it was his mess, so his clean up (yes, I did help some!)

Setting Boundries - Bike riding

Levi loves to ride his bike, but I don't always want to chase him up and down the sidewalk while he does it. He already knows not to go in the road, but he was heading all the way down the sidewalk, where I couldn't see him. So I drew a STOP sign and a 'U-turn' arrow at the point where I wanted him to turn around. It took a few times of reminding him to stop there, but he got the idea, so now I can actually sit down and read a book for a while while he goes back and forth to his stop sign!

Other ideas for setting boundries:

Play 'red light, green light'. We play when walking around the block, and take turns calling out the 'lights' (but everyone stops when red light is called!). The idea being once the child understands what 'red light' means, you can yell that when they start running off in the mall,, crowd or by the street, and hopefully they will stop! With enough practice, it becomes an automatic reaction for them to stop, and saves you from running after them yelling 'stop stop stop'.

Visual boundries are a big help, in locations like parks and the zoo, I tell Levi 'don't go past the ____" (fence, Rhino's, edge of the mulch, etc.). That way he can SEE when he has gone too far (vs. telling him something like 'stay where I can see you')

Establish rules for crossing the street. Our rule is you stop, look both ways, listen, and wait for an adult to say 'OK'. Now he does this EVERY time we get anywhere near a road, even when I forget he will stop me!

Produce from our garden

We get a lot of our organic produce delivered to our house, but latley have been thinking about trying to find more locally grown foods. Less transportation of food means less environmental impact on its way to our table, and it will be fresher too!
Levi and Nai Nai (my mom) have a small garden in the back yard, where they grow whatever happens to sprout when they plant seeds. This is a brocoli they grew, it tasted great and was as fresh as could be, cut, cooked and served right away!

Levi takes some pictures

Levi loves to use my camera to take pictures. I'm trying to teach him how to take good ones instead of just pics of the floor or part of someone with their head cut off! I might look into getting him his own camera, he uses mine every day and really enjoys looking at pictures as well.

Here is a few he has taken!

Putting the dishes away

Here is Levi sorting out the utensils. I removed anything sharp, and then let him figure out what went where. Some things were placed upside-down or with the wrong size (as you can see we have 2 different sized spoons, and 2 different kinds of fork). He was able to seperate the spoons from the forks though, and it kept him entertained long enough for me to put away the cups and plates instead of trying to climb into the dishwasher!
This is a good exercise to practice sorting, plus helping out around the house (always a good thing)

Cookies with Grammy

Grammy is a great cook, and every year she makes lots of christmas cookies! (and chocolate chip cookies year round). Levi is helping with the process by turning the bowl for Grammy. There is a lot to be learned from helping out in the kitchen!

Peeling vegetables

This skill requires close supervision and a little talk about how to use kitchen tools safely (sitting down at the table, only when an adult is with you, etc). We used sweet potatoes because they are easy to hold onto, and easy to peel. After some practice, Levi was able to peel all on his own.

Stone Soup

We read the story ‘Stone soup’ and then made some of our own using leftover veggies from our Organic Produce delivery. Levi loves soup, it’s a good way to get him to eat veggies he wouldn’t otherwise eat!

Using a Garlic Press

This activity teaches the child to do things in order (if they don’t pour the water on first, the sponges won't wring out, put it in the wrong bowl and they end up wet again!), teaches fine motor skills, and hopefully they lean to clean up!

Materials:
3 small bowls
1 small cup of water
garlic press – the basic kind is best
sponge cut into small squares that fit into the garlic press
tray w/towel on it to catch spills

What to do:
Demonstrate the procedure while the child watches, and then let them try!

Set up the tray with the towel in the bottom, 2 empty bowls, 1 bowl w/sponges in it, the garlic press and small cup of water.
the child pours the water onto the sponges
Take one sponge, put it into the press and squeeze the water into one of the empty bowls.
take the now dry sponge out and put it into the second empty bowl
Repeat until all of the sponges are dry. The water in the bowl can now be poured over the dry sponges and the process started again.
When finished, have the child put all the pieces of the activity back and clean up any spills.

Levi loves this activity and will spend forever on it, most of the time he is careful about his spills, but when he starts goofing around, its time to clean up and move on.