Train them up in the way they should go...

Yesterday, while I was reading Skyelynn some Sesame Street books, Melanie started telling me everything Sesame Street teaches babies.

"Mom, Sesame Street teaches babies the letters, how to count, how to brush teeth, shapes, and all the things they don't know. But it doesn't teach babies about God."

Kids are awesome at observing things like this. I took this opportunity to ask her an impromptu question and record her response. Try it. It's fun to see what kids will say and you'll be surprised at just how wise they are.

Take Ten!

Wear them out...

This is what I do on semi nice and nice days to wear my kids out. We race!

This activity is great because it not only encourages exercise but also helps with learning to follow directions.

Here's what you do:

1,) Tell them where to line up for the start of the race.

2.) Give them a direction (touch your nose and run, pat your tummy and walk, skip, etc)

3.) Count while they are coming to the finish line and tell them how long it took them to get there!

I promise you, they'll love it! And they'll be ready for bed time sooner rather than later. Double score!

We did this at the park one day, it started out with just my kids playing and within 5 minutes we had 8 kids playing along with us!

Take Ten!

Make it up as you go along..

Kids love to imagine, they love using things in different ways. An old toy can become something totally new and exciting by creating a new way of playing with it.

This morning the kids and I were playing catch. Easton brought the hula hoop over and I decided to make the game more exciting. Hula hoop basketball was born.

Not a super creative game, not really difficult, but different enough to hold their attention and get them moving and having fun.

The game also helps with hand-eye coordination and depth perception.

Take ten to play something new with your kids!

The simplicity project...

Sometimes keeping things simple makes life and kids a whole lot happier. We don't need complicated projects and activities to keep us entertained. Ain't nobody got time for that! :)

Easter activity #2...I haven't blogged about Easter activity #1 yet.

1.) Cut out ovals (eggs) out of bright colored construction paper.

2.) Find Easter stickers (I bought some on sale 2 years ago and forgot about them until this year.)

3.) Let kids decorate.

4.) Have fun!

Make your kids laugh...I made a crown, glued it to Easton's egg and called it "King Egg".

Take Ten!

watering it down

Melanie wanted to do an art project while her brother and sister were napping. I offered her some water colors. At first I was just going to let her paint alone, but then I decided to make it more meaningful.

I chose a word to sound out and paint at the top of the page. WATER. After spelling the word, I told her to draw a picture of it.

I expected to see a picture of waves, like the ocean, but when I came back to look at her work she had drawn a sippy cup. And it was a pretty darn good picture of a sippy cup.

Ten minutes, new word, cool art.

Take ten!

ar, oo, sh!

Teach some new sounds and watch them grow!

I took a few minutes the other morning to teach some new letter combination sounds to Melanie and Easton.
1.) I showed them the letters on paper.
2.) I told them what they sounded like.
3.) We practiced.
4.) We sounded out some words using the new sounds.
5.) We played a game.

Easy, simple, 10 minutes of learning fun!

For the game, I had the new sounds written up on top of the paper. Below those I had a group of words using the new letter combinations. The kids had to circle all the words that had the "sh" sound in them, the "ar" sounds, and the "oo" sounds until all the words were circled. They also had to sound the words out and tell me what the words said.

See, nothing special, yet the kids still liked it!

It doesn't take much to teach your kids, just a little time!

Just for fun, here is a picture of the letter T Easton made out of cheese and a graham cracker. :)

Take Ten!

Counting on me...

It's all about counting to one hundred these days. We count by ones, we count by tens, but try teaching to count by fives and you get ignored. :) Oh well, they'll learn the other ways to count someday.

For now, we play catch on a regular basis and it is super important that we count our catches until we miss. And when you miss, you have to say "aww I missed!" It's really cute and really quite fun.

It's also important to teach the girls how to curtsy and the boy how to bow, in case there are any tricks or something cool to show mom in between games of catch.

So far the dance moves and tricks between our games have been pretty entertaining.

Our kids are counting more than numbers in their lives. They count on us to be their biggest cheerleaders!

Take Ten!