Teaching Your Toddler to Do Chores

I often have people tell me how smart little princess is, how independent, and her school always says that she is such a good helper and teacher to the other kids. A lot of the time I totally buy into this. I mean it's bad manners to turn down a compliment right??? But, I do get a reality check when we hang out with one particular friend. He is 5wks older than little princess. Man, that little guy is smart as a whip! His mom said she gets the same comments about his intelligence. She also agrees that seeing little princess helps her see it could possibly be normal. Thank goodness we have each other to keep us grounded. ha! :)  That got me thinking. Is princess "smart" or does she just have more experiences? Let's call the little boy prince. Little prince does not watch a lick of TV. His mom doesn't even turn it on until he goes to bed. She also stays off the computer and chances are if you text you won't hear back from her for a while. I know that she is totally devoted to her little family so I don't expect a response right away. Little princess sees some TV. I do turn it on when we get home. However, she does actually watch it and will request Barney in the evenings. I was letting her watch it a lot! We watched it on DVR and Youtube! I thought it was super cute that she asked to watch it and then would sign and ask "again please". But, we are doing a Barney intervention b/c mama can't handle that much Barney. I'm trying to do it only right before bed on weekdays.
I promise all of this has to do with chores. I started thinking she does the things she does and knows the things she knows because of modeling. She's usually right next to me while I work. I don't sit her in front of the tv. She's with me and I talk through what I'm doing using simple vocabulary. After a while she caught on and now she loves to help.

Doing the Dishes
If we are unloading the dishwasher the first I think I do is take out the knives. If we are loading the dishwasher I save the knives for last. She can't really help with loading the dishwasher but she thinks she's helping. Usually, she just rearranges all the utensils and moves them from the center basket to the end basket. In the beginning I had to be clear to watch her. I mean she's a 1yr old. She wanted to lick every utensil. I made a point of saying ooh yucky, that's nasty. That's really helped keep down on the licking. Now, the part that she can help with in loading is added soap and starting the dishwasher. We use the little packets. She gets one out of the pack, puts in the the compartment, closes it, closes the dishwasher, and pushes the green button to start it up. When we are unloading she hands me the dishes to put away. Now, I know what your thinking. You probably wondering if it takes me twice as long to do the dishes. Yes, it takes a little longer but I feel like we are teaching her a life skill and getting her in the habit of contributing to the family. All of this took time. She didn't just start doing it all in one day. We just built on one day at a time until she had all the vocab down and completely understood what we were saying.

Wiping Things Down

This began after Christmas. One of Mr.Spouses clients gave her a little Toy Story table w/two little chairs. I let her eat meals there. I always wiped it down after each meal. Well, one day she had a fit and wanted to wipe too. I handed her a wipe and SHE WENT TO TOWN. I thought alright cool! Now,  I really had to watch her in the beginning. B/c a one year old can't tell the difference b/t a Clorox wipe and a baby wipe. Now she wipes her table, the cabinets, and spills from the floor. She started wiping the cabinets when I discovered after a day home with daddy various parts of my house and her face had a lovely new blue crayon decoration. I will admit, sometimes I think she spills her little coconut milk on the floor on purpose just to clean it up.

Another of her favorite chores is taking out the trash. I use to let her take out the kitchen trash. She would drag it from the kitchen to the garage. Occasionally that would leave streaks and created a mess of it's own. So now she "helps" me carry it out. I do let her take out the bathroom trash all on her own because it's light enough. We also have her put her own put her trash in the trash on her own. Ya know diapers, snack packs, tissue, all that great stuff.

Another chore she helps with that I could not get a picture of is the laundry. She has two jobs with the laundry. She helps move it from the washer to the dryer. She can do this alone except if there are jeans. Those are heavy for her when wet. Once the clothes are dry I let her hand me a hanger as needed. Of course she wants to try and fold the clothes but I'll have to pass on help with that for now. :)

I hope this post can help someone. Remember, it's not about how smart your kiddo is or their ability to do something. I think at this point it's about what you expose them to and the experiences you give.

I'm sharing this with other moms at I Can Teach My Child.

P.S.

Sorry if you are seeing a random pin it button, could not get that to work out :/

Biography Scrapbook Projects



Alright, I think it's time for a crayon post! We just finished the CUTEST project. Just in case you don't remember I teach Texas History. We just finished a unit on the Texas Revolution.  Ya know the Alamo and all that jazz. I kinda found this part of our history ironic. We agreed to move to "Mexico", learn their language and practice their religion. Then we get here and are like nah this whole Spanish Catholic thing isn't really working out for me. Can you please change your laws? No, well ok guess we're gonna fight. If today's immigrants tried that with current Texans how well do you think that would go??? Anywho.. back to the projects. I originally wanted to have the kiddos create a Facebook page. I searched and searched and searched and found nothing to my liking. So then, I kept thinking and thinking and thinking. BAM scrapbook popped in my head. I did a Google search. I found this and used it as my foundation. I work with 4th graders so I made my instructions a bit more detailed. I told them exactly what to put on the cover page and pages 1-4. They came out oober doober cute. I'll go through the page requirements with you.

Cover Page- Texas Hero Name, Student's Name, Social Studies Block, and Homeroom

 

Page 1: Timeline of your hero's life

 

I love how she made out foldable for her timeline.

 

Page 2: Create a written correspondence pretending that you are your hero writing to a loved one during the revolution.

 

 

Page 3: Pretend that you went back in time and interviewed your hero about the Revolution. You have to ask at least 4 questions.

 





I love how he made it like a real newspaper artifact!

 

 

Page 4: Character Traits- create a bubble map with a picture of your hero in the center. You need at least 4 traits to describe your hero.

 

 

I gave the students the option to create extra pages if they wanted. I told them sky is the limit whatever they would like to do. This little girl had twice as many pages as she needed. My favorite was the family tree. It was very creative.

 

I didn't require them to actually buy a real scrapbook. The Sam Houston project used a real book. The Davy Crockett project used scrapbook paper, hole punched it, and added 2 metal rings to bind it all. I was TRUELY amazed with these projects. This was a take home end of unit project. If needed a provided 5 pieces of plain card stock and 2 metal rings. The kids did such a great job. If I had time I could easily show you another 90 books as examples. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to scrapbook!

 

I plan to share this idea with other teachers at Fourth Grade Frolics.

 



 

 



 



It's been a while

Hello sweet friends! I have recipes and cutesy Valentine things I intended to post. But, I logged on and decided I would go a little more into the life side of things. So here what's going on. :)

1. My sweet princess turns 19mos on Tuesday. She is still nursing. We are trying to wean but it's so complicated. She is allergic to dairy milk, soy milk, and almond milk. She didn't have a break out with coconut milk but apparently she doesn't like it much. She likes the almond and soy but it just doesn't like her back. :( It's kinda of hard to wean her from nursing when I don't have an alternative to offer her. So far we only had one day that she did not nurse at all. On average we have it down to once a day. The weekends however are another story. Whenever we are lounging around she's like hey I forgot I could be drinking milk right now. So lesson I learned from this I'm not 100% sure I would ever breastfeed another child. Everyone encourages you to do it for the first 12mos but no one tells you the hell it is weaning if you actually make it that far.

2. I'm having a little trouble balancing all the "jobs" in my life. Ya know wife, mom, teacher, individual, cook, maid. I just can't find a balance and as a result I have pretty much gone bald and have a nice belly to show for it. I decided to try out the Daniel Fast to pray about it more and listen for guidance from the big guy.

3. Mr. Spouse's goal for the new year for himself was to get back into church. So being the supportive wife I am.... I decided to go with him just cause. Well, I'm actually enjoying it and look forward to it. It helps that Pastor Eben is awesome at making self to text connections about the bible. :)

4. All natural... I've also decided to let the relaxer grow out of my hair and go chemical free. We knew from the beginning once we found out we were having a girl that we would not relax her hair ever. Well..I've decided if I'm being the person I want my child to be how would I explain my relaxed hair to her once she's older. I am transitioning to natural hair by wearing a sew in. I would of just chopped off what's left of my own hair but Mr. Spouse begged to go the slower route.

5. More natural... after the fast I also plan to begin to transitioning our family into clean eating. Ya know little to no preservatives, grass fed meat, organic, all that jazz. I just have to get Mr. Spouse on board. This route seems to always be pricey. This was also something we talked about doing as a family when I was preggo.

Well that's all folks. Sorry no recipes, no cute toddler craft projects. Hopefully, I can get some of that up soon after my fast and I see the light on how to balance it all. I hope you enjoyed my totally random post.

P.S.
If you are reading this and you knew me well pre-baby you are probably like WHO THE HECK WRITES THIS BLOG. Well folks it's me....the new me anyway :)

Quick and Easy Chicken and Dumplings

This recipe is pretty easy. I actually came up with it on my own. I guess the term quick is relative. It probably took me about an hour. That's pretty quick considering the way I learned to make them, which was DELICIOUS and completely from scratch took about 4 hours. I'll admit, I'm one lazy sister and a four hour dinner making session is just not on my agenda. I mean it could probably be done in less time once you are confident w/the recipe. But, after I had them I of course wanted more. So, I started browsing the web for a quicker version. I didn't really have any luck.I did find a quick cook method. But, it just didn't taste close enough. Here is what I came up with while trying it out on my own.

Your Ingredients

For the Soup portion
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon Celery Seasoning(The Kroger brand cost $1.00)
10-12 baby carrots sliced
1 cooked chicken
48 oz Chicken Broth
about 1/4 cup of coke

Dumplings
2 1/4 Cup of  Bisquick
2/3 Cup of milk

Directions

Pour the chicken broth and coke into your pot. I have no idea why it needs coke but it does. Not exactly the same without it. I'm sure when I originally learned to make dumplings she told me why it needs coke but I just can't remember.

Add in your salt, pepper, and celery seasoning. Now of course you could actually chop up some celery and just take it out before you eat. But, I'm lazy and this is quicker AND I can get a whole jar of seasoning that will last longer than the actually celery stalks and for less money.

Slice your carrots and toss them in. The amount is really up to you. That's just how many I used for ours. Mr. Spouse doesn't like a bunch of carrots in them. But myself and the little princess love them.

Get your broth going on a low simmer to get the flavors meshing. This is when you start to shred your chicken. I just picked a rotisserie one up from Kroger for like $5. I just pull it all apart and dump it in the pot. I even put the skin in the pot. It has yummy flavor that helps add to your soup flavoring. I just fish it out before serving. Ok, so now that everything is in the pot turn the heat up to medium. It should look something like this..

You need to bring your soup to a boil before the dumplings go in. While your waiting on that to happen we are going to make the dumplings. :)

Dump the 2 1/4 cup of Bisquick and 2/3 cup of milk in a bowl and mix together. It will feel like biscuit dough. I then sprinkle more Bisquick on the dough. I want it a little less sticky so I can roll the dough into dumplings without all the dough getting stuck to my hands. And the extra mix will help thicken your soup so no worries.

Once you have your dumplings and your soup is boiling drop the dumplings into the soup. Just let them sit for 10 minutes. Your dumplings will expand as you cook. (Keep that in mind when you are forming the dough balls.)  After 10 minutes carefully flip your dumplings over so the tops can cook. You are going to let the dumplings continue to cook for another 10 minutes. Now, sprinkle in a couple tablespoons of flour for thickening and stir it all together. All done!

Enjoy :)

Before we go I have to share a picture of the little princess. She heard the camera click on the first snap and automatically said CHEESE. So how could I not take her picture :)

And yes, that is a medicine thingy in her hand. She had just had her allergy medicine before we started cooking. She didn't want to give it up, it was empty so why fight with her. Gotta pick ya battles right?

Online Stories for Toddlers

I try to read with the little princess everyday. It's a part of our bedtime routine. Sometimes when she stays up later than usual we quickly say prayers and skip the book. At that point, she is not into reading a book. A friend of mine posted on FB a while back(yes Gomez if you're reading this I'm talking about you) that her hubby told her not to call b/c their son is watching youtube on the phone. I found it wildly hilarious and then I thought to myself what the heck is a 1yr old watching on youtube. So... I opened youtube and began to explore. Then I thought guh duh!! He's watching the same stories I read to little princess. So, I called little princess over and we started to watch. At this point she wasn't watching TV yet. We just started letting her watch TV late this fall. Anywho... I started looking for my favorite books. I'll share the videos that I like below. I have to say, the one wierd thing was when you've sang a song a million times or read a book and then you hear it read differently. It totally throws me off. :) I hope you and your little tots enjoy the book videos.

50 Below

 

Love you forever

 



Pete the Cat

I also have a double bonus for you. :) I mentioned above about letting little princess watch TV. The only shows we let her watch are Barney, Sesame Street, and Mickey Mouse Club. She really isn't a fan of Sesame Street yet. But she LOVES Barney because of all the singing and dancing. And she really doesn't care for Mickey Mouse Club she just likes the Hotdog song. So pretty much she just likes to watch Barney and that's fine with me. She even holds on to me and rocks side to side to the I love you song. And... gives hugs and kisses on the right part. SO STINKIN CUTE! I found the songs on youtube and they play over and over again. On the Hotdog song she waves buy to Mickey each time at the end of the song, starts to whine b/c she knows it's over, and then gets excited when she sees it's starting over. Kinda funny

Barney I Love You Song 15 times back to back

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Hot Dog song 5X back to back

Enjoy!

 

P.S.

I big puffy heart Robert Munsch!!

 



DIY Gift Ideas

I'm sure if half the world is like my other half you haven't got a single gift yet. Well, before you go out in the madness I have a couple ideas for you.
1. Pedicure in a Jar

This was oober quick, easy, and cheap. I got all the items inside the jar from the travel section. So every item was less than $1. The nail polish was even $1. The brand was Fergie so I figured it had to be halfway decent. I used a little drawing tool in Word to make a label and tada all done.

 

 

2. Vanilla Olive Oil Sugar Scrub

 

 

I originally got this idea for a scrub from Amber at WillsCasa. Her entire DIY Christmas series is AMAZING and will make you feel like a slacker. Be warned :)This was one of her easier DIY if you are sewing challenged like myself. But, no fear if Santa brings me that sewing machine. Amber promises to help me step my DIY skills up to her level .(Amber if you are reading this remember boystown 101, accept the compliment my friend you are amazing) Anywho, I only had Olive Oil and Dark Brown sugar. I did a little reading and figured that could work all the same. Once again this was oober easy and quick. I literally had everything in my pantry. So, the cost of this was practically free except the two bucks I paid for the jar. I didn't follow a recipe. I just used a ratio. I did 2 parts sugar to one part oil. I also used 1 tablespoon of vanilla. The Olive oil smell was pretty strong. But, the Dark Brown sugar smell was the most potent of all so no worries. It smelled amazing by the end of the week when we gave it to her teacher.

 

3. Something for the toddlers

 

 

Layla's class did a book exchange but I also got small gifts for each kiddo. It was about $3.00 per kiddo. I found the oober cute little stocking totes in the dollar bin at Target. They had tons. Next, I got each little friend a train ornament and a teething toy. I put both of those in the stocking and did I little monogram initial with glitter glue from my craft stash.

 

That's all folks!

P.S.

I did my first Black Friday to get myself an awesome Cannon Rebel. I literally got the very last one :) I must say it takes beautiful pictures!!!

QR Codes In the Classroom

The last post I made I mentioned I was going to try QR Codes in the classroom. Well, I tried it and my kids LOVED it. I just took the textbook pulled out the important info from the chapter and made a QR code from it. I placed them around the room and the kids had to find them and scan them.

After they finished all the scans they had to color code their notes. I had them code by if the fact told about the tribes region, way of life, government, or a fun fact. Sorry, I totally didn't realize this picture was upside down.

After we finished doing 2 tribes we compared them using a venn diagram foldable. My principal did a walk through while I taught this lesson. He said it was perfect! I was glad but honestly I was secretly hoping he caught one of my QR code lessons. I knew he would think it was super cool. The kids did a good job on the foldables.

I decided to share my codes with you all. I hope your kiddos enjoy or that this has given you an idea :) Enjoy! I'm sharing these ideas with other teachers here and here.