Pedigreed Housewife World

What does this look like to you? If you said “egg cartons”, you are thinking like a mom, but if you said “T-rex teeth”, you are thinking like a toddler.   Next quiz, what does this look like to you? If you said “Tadoodles paints”, you are definitely a mom of toddlers, but if you said “T-rex toothbrushes with the toothpaste inside already” then you’re in the right mindset for today’s activity. Today the family and I are talking about oral hygiene.   I think that it is hard for the kids to understand the somewhat intangible concept of cleaning every tooth sufficiently, so for the past couple of weeks I’ve had in the back of my mind to keep an eye out for teeth cleaning things for the kids.   Ironically…yeah probably in an Alanis Morrisette kind-of way…I was saving some egg cartons for a different craft and I opened the drawer where I was keeping them to put a Bounty paper roll in the drawer and Briana saw me and said “Roooooaaaarr!   Dinosaur teeth in there.” ...

In honor of the fact that the girls love their new music class, I have decided to spend this week enhancing their knowledge of music by teaching them the basics of reading music.   The kids regularly play my guitar and clarinet (Check out my Sound ‘Speriments blog), and they will bring me sheet music and ask that I play them something; however, I have never tried to ‘decode’ the sheet music for them before.   The best part is that this week, I’m not only teaching the kids, but I’m also teaching my husband how to read music as well! Looking at a musical staff can be overwhelming because there is so much information in a very compact form, so I break it down to the basics for everyone.   Said another way, I know I’m leaving a bunch of info out, like what key the music is in and everything related to playing the notes (crescendos, staccato, sharps and flats, etc.), but this is our first lesson after all. “You know how we read books by looking at all of the letters and ...

Last weekend we took a roadtrip out to Philadelphia to visit my in-laws.   In the process we had to stop at rest stops to potty, eat, and fill up on gas, which got me thinking that it’s about time to talk to the kids about germs.   The trick here is to inform the kids about germs without creating little germ-a-phobes.   I start by asking them if they know what germs are.   “They’re yucky stuff.” Answers Bree.   “Not always” I reply, though I was surprised that she had heard the word before.   Maybe all of that money we’re pumping into her private preschool isn’t for naught.   Then I tell them all about germs.   Germs are tiny living things around us that can creep into our bodies.   Some are good and some are bad.   There are 4 kinds of germs: bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa.   I offer no additional explanation on those because the nuances of differences between the 4 types of germs will only confuse the kids.   I do...

Happy New Years readers!  It’s time to throw out all of the old calendars and get ready for 2011.  So I figured that now is as good a time as any to teach the kids about the months of the year. I decided that it would be neat to let the kids see how the weeks stack into months and months stack into years and what better way to see that than in a calendar.  I also thought it would be great to teach them about their schedules.  So I set out to have our first educational activity of the year be to make a calendar.  In addition to learning about the months, this will also reinforce both letters and numbers.  There is nothing more important to a toddler than having a routine established and this activity will also reinforce to them that there is order to our seemingly random days. Here are my steps for making a calendar with your toddlers: Step 1:  Get colored construction paper. The first thing I did was to grab some construction paper in 4 colors – 4 ...