No TV Child Care

Writing Stories

writing stories1 224x300 Writing Stories

I type the child's story and leave space to illustrate

Sammy still asks to write stories. Of course he doesn’t have to ask – I think he likes the support he gets when I know he’s going to sit down and write.  Last week he wanted to go back to the wildflower lot, where he got some good story ideas earlier this summer. 

The kids didn’t recognize the place. They were sure I had made a wrong turn and brought them to a different place.  The colours were different – many of the blooms were finished and green plants had grown larger and thicker.  They weren’t disappointed – I don’t think, but Sammy and Brigit were certainly curious about the change. The mosquitoes were bad and we couldn’t stay long, When we got home Sammy was ready to start writing. And he didn’t write anything about the things we saw on our walk.

Brigit was ready to do a story too. They both appreciate the process – privately dictating their story to me while I write and then the good part; I read each of their stories out loud. They delight in having their sibling hearing their story! . Brigit wrote about being a princess – a princess who loved the colour green,which I thought was interesting because Brigit’s princesses up until now have always been pink.

Sammy wrote about a snake that he wanted to be a pet and the snake had an adventure coming into his house. When the children do stories I want them to enjoy putting their ideas ‘out there’ and then seeing these ideas appear on paper.  I take their stories home with me and type them up. Each page is ½ text and ½ blank space so they have a space to add their pictures.  Sammy is very careful about choosing illustrations for his ‘book’ – wanting the pictures to help carry his story. Sammy’s ability to sequence his story ideas is growing.

This summer Sammy’s story ideas also included: meeting aliens in space; a  play by play of a team basketball game, a monster truck race and an archaeologist’s search for a lost dinosaur bone. Brigit asks me for a starter line and then takes the story off on her own. She is growing in her ease with telling a story – however I still have to cue her to thinking about drawing the story to a close. Brigit loves to tell a story, as much as she loves to hear one!

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Clara, September 6th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Artistic Expression With Young Children, Stories

Bike Riding and Other Games in the School Yard

bike place 300x224 Bike Riding and Other Games in the School Yard

Pavement and grass for bike riding

Over the summer on weekends the kids have been riding bikes on trails with their parents. Sammy rides his two wheeler well and Brigit does too with training wheels on her bike. Bike riding is fast becoming a fun activity for them. I decided it’s time to explore how they can entertain themselves with their bikes during our morning outings.

Of course I would have to offer Lily some options. Her choices are to bring a baby stroller or one of the riding toys. A couple of times she chose a riding toy but lately, while Sammy and Brigit get their bike helmets on, Lily tucks her baby into a stroller. I pack the wagon with my chair, radio (for my listening enjoyment) equipment for games, snack and items necessary to get us through the morning (like a diaper change, water bottles, first aid and my cell phone).

 The school yard is perfect for bike riding and games. I can set up my ‘station’ with my chair in the shade where I can see the kids playing over a large area. It’s a great practice area – offering a flat paved surface biking fun or practicing turns and circles and bumpy, grassy hills to ride up and down. Lily wanders around – sometimes with her stroller – but mostly just exploring.  

When Sammy and Brigit tire of bike riding we have with us the stuff for other games to play ( I make sure I have 3 of everything so Lily always has the option of joining her siblings);

bouncing balls on the brick school wall

fly balls 300x224 Bike Riding and Other Games in the School Yard

Put a rubber ball into a stretchy stocking for a great fly ball

putting balls in the bottoms of  stretchy stockings and swinging them high into the air or aiming for basketball hoops

hopscotch – using the markings provided on the playground

marble games

broad jump games – using the school sand pit

digging/playing in the sand – we bring shovels

and of course, eating our morning snack

We’ve come to enjoy this playground – we’ll miss it when school starts!

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Clara, September 6th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Children and Nature, Children's Play, Physical Development, Self Care

Cooking Chinese

chinese cookining 300x225 Cooking Chinese

The kids prepare the vegetable for their Chinese Noodle recipe

Western culture children are intrigued watching Asian folks use chopsticks and they want to try doing it themselves. I thought it would be fun to make a meal that would be suitable for using chopsticks.  It was also a good way to introduce Lily, Brigit and Sammy to some new flavours. 

Noodles are usually a good start with kids. I bought a package of chow mein noodles and promised them that the noodles would be super duper long – longer noodles than they’ve ever had before. I told them about the Chinese New Year tradition of serving noodles on the holiday and the long noodles symbolizing long life.

Using a children’s recipe book with pictures and instructions we made a sauce using these ingredients:

Ginger

Soy sauce

Honey

Vinegar

Peanut butter- unsweetened

Brigit, Sammy and Lily measured and stirred and for this recipe, I encouraged them to taste along the way. Usually I don’t encourage tasting because it’s hard to stop a child from tasting once she starts – and then tasting and putting fingers and utensils into her mouth becomes a rather unsanitary practice!  But with this meal, because the flavours were a little different, I let them.

We added some cooked broccoli and chard to the sauce . I put sauce on each very small serving to start,  rather than mix it in with the pot of noodles, just in case the children didn’t like it. I’m glad I did because they really didn’t like it much – not nearly as much as they liked the  flavours they tasted as we were mixing!  But the kids enjoyed the vegetablesi and the long long noodles and had great fun practicing eating with chopsticks.

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Clara, September 6th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Health and Nutrition, Healthy Eating

A Natural Dye Project With Children

 We’re not going into the woods these days mostly because the mosquitoes are nasty. But also because I’ve heard stories this summer of people encountering poisonous plants like poison ivy.  I need to learn more about these plants. However, our walks along the paths that circle the woods still gives us surprises.

Though we are in the middle of August the abundance of wildflowers is as rich as it was a month ago. One day last week I suggested to the kids that we look for a colour we can use as a dye – I had a white cotton doily I wanted to colour. It was a toss up between the yellows and blues and in the end Brigit, Sammy and Lily’s combing of the bushes and meadow harvested mostly yellow flowers.

Back at home we separated the petals from the plants, put them into a pot and covered them with water. Next, to make a tie-dye  design on the doily, I tightly bunched up the cloth in several places with elastics.  We put this into the pot with the petals and let it simmer. Because we started our project late in the afternoon I took the dye and cloth home to finish simmering and soak overnight.  I added some onion skin to darken the yellow colour.

In the morning Brigit helped remove the elastics. Then she rinsed the doily in cool water – the water surprisingly clear after only two rinses. Our doily was a new colour with a design!

doiilie 300x225 A Natural Dye Project With Children

Yellow flowers and onion skins gave us our colour


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Clara, August 24th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Children and Nature

Marble Games With Kids

marbles 300x225 Marble Games With Kids

I remember marble games when I was a child, absorbing many hours of my summer days. I don’t remember the rules of the games – but I do remember that I didn’t take my marbles to school, only my brothers did that. I wasn’t up to the competition of the school yard games.

The asphalt path is a perfect place to play marbles with Sammy, Lily and Brigit. I bring 3 marble bags, a couple of handfuls of small (regular) marbles and 3 large marbles – we used to call them ‘aggots’. These are for Lily. I can’t allow her to play with the small marbles yet – a few more months before I can feel assured that she won’t put them in her mouth.  And I bring chalk.

Each time before they play, they choose their marbles. Over the summer they’ve come to have favourites, preferring particular colours. They dump all the marbles together and then, one marble at a time, Brigit and Sammy take turns choosing the ones they will play with that day and put them into their bags.

So far, the kids prefer to play individually rather than together. Sammy and Brigit draw their own circles and squares and make their own game rules.  I’m often invited to play with one or the other and so is Lily, who adds to their games with her large marbles. 

I’ve had fun playing marbles with them, re-learning how to flick marbles with my fingers (Sammy taught me) and how to get right down to eye level to shoot. And I enjoy just watching them fashion and re-fashion their rules, challenging their growing marble shooting skills.

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Clara, August 24th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Behaviour Changes, Competitive Behaviours

Peach Pie

peach pie 300x225 Peach Pie

Lily spooned ithe peaches onto the pie pastry

Peaches will never be cheaper or more locally available than now. Sammy’s been asking to make a pie and I was putting it off because I can’t make pie crust. But a friend gave me her home made pie crust ready to roll out. The time was right for that pie!

I love to see kids handle food.  I figure they need all the ‘hands-on’ with unprocessed food they can get to prepare them for healthy eating into adulthood. I started by plopping 6 peaches into boiling water and leaving them for about a minute. Then I put the hot peaches on the table and we started peeling them.

I gave the kids each a dinner (table) knife and a cutting board. The skins just slipped off, exposing shiny, juicy and very slippery peach flesh. Then we cut off chunks of peach, down to the stone. 

In a separate bowl we mixed:

1 egg

2 tablespoons flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

The kids mixed in the peaches then each took a turn rolling out the pastry. I know all the warnings about over rolling and the pastry needing just the right amount handling  – but given that I’ve never been successful making a pie crust anyway, I chose to let kids at least have the fun of working with it! We got the pastry into the pie plate and I put it into the oven at 400 degrees. After 15 minutes I turned the temperature down to 300 degrees and let the pie bake for another 50 minutes.

Our afternoon snack was delicious , disappearing far too quickly!

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Clara, August 24th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Health and Nutrition, Healthy Eating

The Gnomes

resized gnomes in house 225x300 The Gnomes

The kids make their story things

 Sammy and Brigit are naturally good story makers and I’ve found that when I provide the same materials from one day to the next they continue the same stories  and build on them. Starting with their few chosen logs or animals they simply develop the  characters a bit more, add or change a few pieces and play out new scenarios. So, watning to support and encourage their play and not wanting to direct ‘how’ they develop their stories, I decided to introduce a theme.to see if they would play with it and make it grow.

I found  wooden peg ‘people’ pieces, about 3 inches high. These can stand, making them ideal for doing stories.  Then I found some sewing patterns on the net to make clothing for gnomes and fairies. Once I had completed 2 gnomes and 1 fairy I introduced them to the kids, along with 2 lightweight fleece mats – one a solid green colour and 1 white – these are for summer and winter stories. I added a length of soft blue fleece for a pretend pond or a river. 

While the children played with the gnomes and fairy I started making felt sleeping bags. Of course the kids wanted to sew also, so they each stitched a sleeping bag and, as the afternoons of play with the  gnomes went on, they stitched more sleeping bags and little carrying bags for their characters.

The kids gnome stories did grow, and they asked for more gnomes. Once we had 4 gnomes, Sammy  was calling them ‘rainbow ‘ gnomes and wanted me to make one for each rainbow colour. By this time Lily was joining the play, bopping her gnomes behind the others’ and telling us what they are doing.

                                  .

I then added elves to our rainbow community and an ogre. While they play with the toys I am usually nearby making something for the theme and, whenever possible, inviting the children to help with the project.  So far together we have made:

A stick ‘teepee’ style tent

Sleeping bags and food bags

A bridge, made out of a piece of deadwood

Origami paper boats

A papier mache ‘volcanic’  mountain with the ogre house under it

A papier mache house for the fairy to live on top of the mountain

A fire circle for the gnomes to gather ‘round for meetings and roasting marshmallows

An ogre made out of beeswax

Pillows and blankets

The kids refer to the toys, now a toy set, as The Gnomes.  The stories are still coming, and the personalities of their characters are developing.

I suspect, when Sammy, Lily and Brigit decide the toy set is complete, they will stop playing with it. Until then, it’s like an open book, waiting for them to add something.

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Clara, August 24th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Artistic Expression With Young Children, Stories

Guns

gun1 150x150 Guns

Toy guns give children our approval on killing. Do we want this?

Guns frighten me. My “fear” is my motivation to help kids learn how to make peace rather than war; to help them practice conflict resolution rather than killing enemies. 

Children play to imagine and work out for themselves what they would do or how they would behave when they grow up. If I give them guns to play with, their imaginations will produce scenarios in which they can practice using the weapons. A child sees herself in her scenario – she is the hero working with the power of the gun to solve a conflict. Sadly, she never sees herself or her family as the victims in her scenario.   .

Children’s play translates into adult behaviours. We know this now. We learned  not to give little kids pretend cigarettes, though they certainly had fun looking ‘cool’ pretending to smoke, just like adults, Even the most hard core smoker , knowing how deadly smoking can be, thinks twice about encouraging a child to pretend smoke these days. The candy cigarettes alone won’t turn a child into an adult smoker – but the candy cigarettes along with the advertising and watching adults smoke do have a huge impact. Toy guns are the same. The toys together with video games and violent tv shows tell young children that killing is an appropriate way to annihilate a problem.  

So rather than practice using weapons to kill enemies I want to practice making peace with kids and living on a sustainable planet. Making and keeping peace takes a lot of practice and skill. Toddlers and preschoolers are already learning self control and negotiating skills to get what they want – skills and behaviours that will carry them into adulthood. So they are eager for pretend play that involves conflict and working out their emotions. I want to guide them to problem solve imaginary, conflictual situations without killing their enemies.

So I have a ‘No Killing” rule. They can pretend trap, capture ,chase, trick, tie up, use magic spells, even shoot to stop – but I won’t allow them to do pretend killing. The toys they use can’t shoot pretend bullets – but they can shoot  their enemy with anything else  – water, pretend ketchup, mud, syrup, soap etc. I won’’t let their games involve using bullets or bombs because these kill. Enemy and capture games often get interesting once an enemy is captured (not dead) and they have to figure out what to do with him or her!

Hunting is a different story. We live in a meat eating society.  Kids can practice and imagine hunting and become sensitive to the issues that surround killing animals humanely and without waste.

Peacemaking skills (or lack thereof) determine the future quality of life for our children and our neighbourhoods.

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Clara, August 18th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Behaviour Changes, Conflict Resolution

Meet you at the Park! Our Daily Summer Schedule

 

 ttree and grass 199x300 Meet you at the Park! Our Daily Summer Schedule

We’re finding our rhythm these hot summer mornings.  Once the July heat settled in, it seemed harder to leave the air conditioning and comfortable routines of inside play.

So the trick seems to be to get outside earlier before it’s really hot. Once we are out and find some shade, it isn’t hard staying out, especially the days we go to the park. Before we go, one or more of the kids help me bake a snack and I get most of the lunch ready for when we return, impatient with the heat, fatigue and hunger.

Lately we’ve been lucky to sometimes meet with friends at the park. We share our pot luck snacks of biscuits or muffins and fruit. There are some lovely places with shade trees and stretches of grass for play or just sitting around. In our wagon, along with extra diapers, first aid and water bottles, we have our usual assortment of play things- balls, marbles, chalk, rainbow makers etc, which the kids ‘re-purpose’ for the games they invent.

With three playgrounds to choose from, I take the kids for a climb and swing but return to our shade before too long.  Playground structures, no matter how interesting they appear, aren’t much fun without shade when the sun is bearing down and UV ratings are high.       

A long play time at the park consumes most of the morning. Once home, my challenge is to offer Lily her lunch before she is too sleepy to eat it.  After we’ve all had our afternoon rest and feel refreshed, an hour or two of quiet inside play is incredibly satisfying!

 

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Clara, August 8th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Children and Nature, Children's Play

More Tweaking Sleep Routines

You want tired, happy kids at bedtime Lily’s parents came up with the brilliant idea to change Lily’s bedroom door knob from a pull down handle style to a door ‘knob’ type.  Then they put one of those slippy knob covers over it.

So Lily can’t open her door – which put an end to her ‘charging the door’ while mom or dad stood on the other side holding it shut. Now a parent stays near her room, but Lily doesn’t fight to get out, because she knows she can’t.

However, Lily still resists staying in bed and often falls asleep on the floor beside her bed, which is carpeted and not uncomfortable. But not until she moves lots of stuff around in her room, as mom discovers later she goes into her room, Mom has now moved all of Lily’s clothing that was on open shelving, to higher places. Lily was clearly enjoying putting her stuff in new places – but mom got tired of refolding everything! Now Lily just re-locates teddy bears and such before lying down on the floor and going to sleep.

But Lily’s antics played havoc with Brigit’s sense of security at bedtime, which was rocky even before Lily’s new crib-to-bed issues. Brigit’s routine fell completely apart with the onset of  Lily’s noisy resistance to staying in bed.

Brigit got into crying and needing her parent’s consolation before going to sleep; crying that escalated to the point of her not being able to control or stop it without mom or dad returning to her room. Brigit was falling asleep later and later each night.  

Mom and I consulted several times. We considered:

  • the total number of hours Brigit was sleeping and the average # of hours that Four year olds need.
  •  Brigit’s particular history with separation anxiety
  •  mom’s hope for the children to be able to sleep through the night in their own beds, usually without needing their help going to sleep after all the bedtime rituals have been completed.
  • the fact that Brigit is starting school in September and every other day she will not have an opportunity for an afternoon sleep.

Mom and I know that Brigit’s afternoon sleep affects her night bedtime routine. How it affects it, is unclear.

I am convinced that giving children an opportunity to rest in the afternoon gives them the best possible chance to feel good physically and emotionally through to bedtime. I am aware that children who do not usually rest in the afternoon often go to bed at night feeling overtired and too wound up for sleep to come easily. And I know that an afternoon nap that is too long or too late will also lead to wakefulness at night bedtime.

In addition to the child needing a rest in the afternoon,  the parent or caregiver also needs one.  It is good for children to know that we all are having a rest – simply because we all need rest. Making time for an afternoon rest is good, healthy modeling.

We go for our rest time at about 1:30. I take my rest close to the children’s rooms. Brigit’s afternoon routine used to be to look at books while staying on her bed. I’d tell her she didn’t have to sleep, but she always did. I’d waken her after an hour. She would be pretty groggy, but I’d never leave her in bed longer than an hour.

But we changed this in an attempt to resolve her evening bedtime crying. To help her feel she is capable of gaining control over it, we now offer her a new priviledge as an incentive to try not to cry at bedtime. When I get the thumbs up from mom in the morning that Brigit had a no-cry, cooperative bedtime, she doesn’t have to stay on her bed at rest time but she can play quietly on her bedroom floor, just like Sammy.

The ‘reasoning’ for Brigit, is that a no-cry bedtime gives her a good sleep at night – therefore she can play during the afternoon rest time. When/if she ‘slips’ and has a crying bedtime, the loss of her priviledge to play on the floor isn’t punishment – it’s to allow her to catch up on sleep missed. Brigit wouldn’t be happy with it – but she would understand it.

The incentive seems to be enough for Brigit to manage her crying at bedtime. And in the afternoons, she’s crawled into her bed to sleep only a couple of times so far. Most days she stays awake for the hour, playing. And best of all, she is going bed at night feeling good.   

 

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Clara, August 8th 2010 | Tags:
Posted in Health and Nutrition, Self Care, Sleep
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