Free Preschool Activities

I remember helping our preschoolers get ready for the evening of Santa’s visit. There was a carrot for a hungry reindeer. A glass of milk for Santa’s thirst. And of course, cookies! Here is an easy recipe you can use with your preschooler to make no-bake oatmeal cookies for Santa. They do require the use of a microwave and parental supervision.

I enjoy baking with preschoolers because it helps teach them measuring skills, pouring skills, hand-eye co-ordination, the importance of following instructions, plus the result are always delicious!

What you need:

2 c. white sugar

3/4 c. butter

1/2 (12 oz) can evaporated milk

1 pkg. instant butterscotch pudding mix

3 1/2 c. quick cooking oats

What you do:

Combine the sugar, butter and milk in a microwave safe bowl. Cook on high for 2-5 minutes, until the mixture comes to a boil. Let the mixture sit for 30 seconds. Then stir in the pudding and the oatmeal. Drop by teaspoon onto wax paper lined cookie sheets. Let sit until firm, around 15 minutes.

Remember to save some for Santa!

by Tracy Zdelar

Don’t let the economy bum you out when it comes to having fun.  Saving money should always be in fashion anyways. Get creative and think outside the box to spice up life. If you haven’t had to get creative before, now is a good time to start. Look for “free community” opportunities for fun times!

Earlier this year we made a purchase from a furniture store in the Akron area and became a “past customer”. This furniture store sent out flyers recently to their “past customers” inviting us to a free Fall Festival at their store.  Details of the night included finger-food dinner from “their” cafe-  (yes, this furniture store has a cafe), a free gift (choice of a pumpkin or a floor rug), a little bit of Halloween fun for the kiddos (trick or treating for candy) and if you were making a non-refundable purchase that night you could play musical chairs and get a chance to win up to $5000 off your purchase that night!

Other frugal ways to have fun:

~ While the weather is still nice, give the kids some paper lunch sacks and go for a walk.  Have the kids pick up whatever looks interesting (and safe) and put it in the bags. Or, give them a list of things to hunt…a scavenger hunt! Acorns, gold leaves, pine cones, strange rocks…etc..

~  Teach them how to rake leaves. If they are young enough, they might actually “believe” it is fun!

~ Have a s’mores cookout on the grill or over the fire pit in the backyard. Get a bag of marshmallows, a box of Hershey bars  and graham crakers. Just toast the marshmallows and stick between to crackers with a chocolate bar.  You can also do this in the oven broiler. (Stand by  and wait so it doesn’t burn!) Just put your crackers on foil, top with marshmallows- when those are toasty take out of oven and place your chocolate on top and eat! Okay, let it cool first.

~ Pick out different leaves, bring in the house, lay wax paper or plain white paper and use a crayon to color over to bring out the shape of the leaves.

~ Make a craft with your souvenirs you gathered from your nature walk.

Spending time with your family or friends is the key, isn’t it? That alone doesn’t have to cost money. So get busy thinking. You’ll be surprised to find the simple things you can do for “free” that may just net you “priceless” memories in the future!

Tracy Zdelar lives in Canton, Ohio and is a graduate of Liberty University with a bachelors in Interdisciplinary Studies.  She’s enjoyed (more and less) working in a variety of fields from being a small newspaper “high school” news writer,  fast food,  management, teaching,  and case management in the health care system (just to name a few).  She now, like many moms, desires to work from home. This has been a journey in and of itself.  Tracy has earned extra income from home by being in direct sales, offering childcare, selling on Ebay,  and affiliate marketing - sometimes simultaneously .

As a wife and mother of two boys, Tracy now focuses on  affiliate marketing, blogging, and promoting other WAHMs (work-at-home moms) as well as sharing her money saving ways, reviews and resources on her website  http://www.HallofFameMoms.com

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Here are two more easy craft ideas for your young preschoolers. These will take a little more planning and clean up for you. But the nice thing about both of them, is your child will end up with a project they can use everyday. Imagine how proud your little one will be to show their own t-shirt and placemat t0 your family and friends!

Design a T-Shirt

Preschoolers can have a blast decorating a plain white t-shirt with colorful markers. If you use washable ones, they can create a design, wear it, and start over after you wash the shirt. If a permanent design is desired, however, you’ll have to let him use non-washable markers. You can avoid a mess by covering the work area with newspaper and putting a smock on your toddler.

Placemats

Making placemats out of contact paper is very easy. Have your toddler cut shapes out of construction paper and glue them onto a whole piece with a glue stick. He can add detail with markers or embellish with stickers. When he’s done, place the artwork on a piece of contact paper, sticky side up. Place another sheet of contact paper on top, sticky side down.

Most toddlers will only have the patience to make one placemat at a time. But he can make another one tomorrow, continuing until there are enough for the whole table. He’ll be so proud to know that everyone sees his artwork at every meal!

Crafting can help your toddler learn important skills while keeping him quietly occupied. Whether it’s a rainy day or he’s just feeling creative, seize the opportunity to let him channel his imagination into something you can both admire.

I promised you some easy craft ideas you can do with your preschooler. Here are some that are good for older preschoolers, and also toddlers.

Parents of very young preschoolers (1 -2 yrs) often wonder how they can do crafts with their children. Those little people have a lot of energy, but don’t crafts with your toddler can be a lot of fun for both of you, and help your toddler learn how to follow instructions and develop hand-eye coordination.  When you work with toddlers, you’ll need to adjust your expectations. They have short attention spans and they’ll need a lot of adult help.

Here are two craft ideas that are fun and easy to do with preschoolers of any age.

Craft Stick Puppets

Puppets are fascinating to toddlers. Creating their own puppets is easy, and it’s lots of fun. All you really need are some craft or popsicle sticks, construction paper, safety scissors, markers and glue.

Help your toddler cut animal shapes out of construction paper. He can draw faces and other details with washable markers. Glue the stick to the back of the shape, let dry, and he’s ready to put on a puppet show. If you want to make more elaborate puppets, try cutting shapes out of foam. Glue on a pom pom for the nose, and add some googly eyes.

What I love to do with these, is help the toddler tell a simple story with the new characters she just created. Or read a favorite story and have the toddler’s puppets participate.

Paint with Pudding

Kids love to fingerpaint, but it’s so messy. And there’s also the concern about them eating the paint. Even if the paints are nontoxic, it can make cautious parents uneasy. The solution? Let them paint with pudding!

You don’t need different flavors to make different colors. Just use one serving of plain vanilla pudding, divide it up into small portions, and add food coloring to create various shades. Give your child a paper plate to use as a canvas for his masterpiece. When he’s done, he can eat it with no worries.

If you’re working with older toddlers or preschoolers, you can even help them mix the pudding. My kids loved that!

Tomorrow I’ll have some more easy craft ideas for you and your preschoolers.

I love making gingerbread houses! Over the years, we’ve made several different kinds. Some were a lot of work, but the results were beautiful. Others were a lot of work, and the results were disastrous! (They still tasted good, though.)

After all this trial and error, here is my favorite way to make gingerbread houses with young kids. They can even do a lot of the work on their own.

What You Need:

500 mL empty milk cartons, with the top taped shut to form a roof.

Graham wafers

Icing

Candies to decorate

What You Do:

Using the icing as glue, cover each side of the milk carton with a graham wafer. Attach graham wafers to the top for the roof.

Decorate as you like, using the icing to make the candies stick. Your preschooler can easily create an entire village of these.

If you’re more daring than I , and want to spend more time building your gingerbread house, a gingerbread house cookie pan can be a lot of fun too. All the pieces of your gingerbread house will come out perfectly shaped… and you can even make a gingerbread man and gingerbread tree to go along with it. (Much better than rolling out a big sheet of cookie dough, and cutting the shapes out by hand… which we have also done!)

Whatever method you choose, building gingerbread houses with preschoolers is a blast, and tasty too.

One of my favorite Christmas activities to do with kids of ANY age is baking cookies. It’s a fun way to spend time together, and your kids can learn a lot about measuring and following instructions. All the pouring, mixing, and molding is also a good way to help develop your child’s fine muscle coordination.

Even very young preschoolers can have fun baking cookies, you just have to be well-prepared! I found this fun article written by a mom who enjoys cookie baking with kids as much as I do. There’s also a great cookie recipe you can make with your preschoolers. To turn them into Christmas cookies, just use holiday-themed cookie cookies and add Christmas-colored sprinkles.

Bonding over Cookie Play by Dominique Goh

When one thinks about baking and cakes you normally visualize kids age 5 or 6 and above doing the activities. This activity can actually be taken down to toddlers aged 2-4 and done under parental supervision.

This weekend my boys and I had great fun attending a cookie baking playdate with his friends. They enjoyed squishing their hands through the cookie dough and pressing out the various shapes using the assortment of cookie cutters that I have.

The boys learned and practice how to share with their friends as we had limited cookie cutters and all of them were eying the Thomas the train cutters. They took turns and shared what resources we had.

This activity is very easy to prepare as you can do the dough before hand and store it in the fridge.

Recipe Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 c. granulated sugar

3/4 c. brown sugar - lightly packed

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

Put the butter, both sugars, salt and the baking soda in a large mixing bowl and beat with a mixer for about 3 minutes. Blend in the eggs and vanilla extract. Reduce the mixer speed and add the flour gradually.

This cookie dough is best used when chilled so try to mix it up ahead of time to allow for a couple hours in the refrigerator. Chill between batches.

Bake at 375° for 10 to 12 minutes on an un-greased cookie sheet.

Do try it out with your kids. They will certainly enjoy it.

Dominique Goh, elementary school educator and mom to two active boys. Catch my writings at my blog- http://www.dominiquegoh.com

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

I hope you have some a great time baking cookies with your preschooler! A delicious way to serve your freshly baked cookies is with hot cocoa, and a candy cane as a stirring stick.  Candy cane flavored hot cocoa! Yum. Enjoy!

Spiders aren’t insects (they’re arachnids) but they can be a lot of fun to learn about. I think most kids are fascinated by spiders, which explains some of our favorite nursery rhymes!

Here’s an activity to help your children learn the rhyme, Little Miss Muffet, and have a healthy snack too.

You’ll need:

• A nursery rhyme book. I’ve also posted the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme for you here.
•  Small pillow for each child
• Cottage cheese
• Cut-up fruit
• Small paper plate
• Spoon
• Soft toy
• String

Before you begin this activity, tie a soft toy to the piece of string and put it out of the way until you’re ready to use it.

Show your preschooler a picture of Little Miss Muffet in your nursery rhyme book, and read each line out loud.

Then, encourage your children to act out the rhyme. You can give them a snack of cottage cheese and cut-up fruit (curds and whey) and they can sit on smell pillows (tuffets).

After the children eat their snack,  and put away their plates (so no one makes a mess) help them repeat the rhyme, and dangle the soft toy in front of each child to pretend to “frighten them away,” as a game.

Can your preschoolers tell you what happened to Little Miss Muffet in their own words? Being able to describe something in their own words in an important part of listening and understanding.

Well, I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day. I certainly did. My little ones made me a delicious breakfast in bed, and this year they didn’t burn the toast!

I’ve been writing a lot about food and cooking lately, and I think that’s because food is such an important part of preschoolers’ lives. I mean, we’re constantly trying to think of ways to get healthy food into them, and they seem to always be looking forward to the next snack time!

The kitchen is a great place for learning to take place too.

Here are some of the free things you can do with your preschooler in the kitchen.

• make patterns out of fruit loops or smarties.
• learn the alphabet with magnetic letters on the fridge door.
• practice stirring and pouring
• learn counting and measuring
• learn about the food groups or food pyramid
• explore different textures (rice, flour, salt, etc.)
• learn about crystals by looking at salt or sugar through a magnifying glass
• grow some mold, and learn what mold is
• practice sharing (share a snack with a friend)
• practice good manners at a tea party
• use food coloring to learn about colors
• and the list goes on and on!

Today (when you’re not outside enjoying the spring weather) spend some time with your preschooler in the kitchen, and see what you can learn together!

by Christine Steendahl – “The Menu Mom”

Almost everyone may remember when classroom bulletin boards displayed the food pyramid. The pyramid – there was only one. One size fit all. Everyone needed to subscribe to the same nutritional guidelines. Everyone was told to merely glance at the pyramid to figure out how many servings were needed each day.

Almost all would agree that it is a good thing that obsolete food pyramid has gone by the wayside! It may have taken a while, but the idea that not all people require the same food intake finally caught on. Nor are children expected to follow the same nutritional guidelines as the adults.

If you’re hoping we’ll show you the “kid’s guidelines” there unfortunately isn’t a predetermined guideline. The amount of food from each food group that each person needs to eat to maintain a healthy lifestyle is dependent on their age, sex and physical activity level. One size doesn’t fit all. You can go to http://mypyramid.gov/ to type in some search criteria to get an idea of how much from each food category to eat every day.

Remember balance is the name of the game. Make sure your little ones are eating fruits and vegetables, dairy, meats and beans and grains every day. Then round it off with water, fresh air and exercise. To help you get started, below you will find a couple of nutritious meals for children.

This turkey avocado sandwich wrap uses kid-friendly ingredients for a nutritious lunch or treat.

INGREDIENTS:
• Whole wheat tortillas
• 1 avocado mashed
• Sliced deli turkey
• Shredded carrots
• Shredded lettuce
• Shredded Monterey jack cheese

PREPARATION:
Assemble wraps in the following order: Spread mashed avocado on tortilla; Sprinkle shredded carrots and lettuce on avocado; Lay on slices of deli turkey; Sprinkle with shredded cheese.

In addition, you won’t get any looks of disappointment if you inform the children you’re making chicken nuggets for supper. This kid favorite is just as good in the low-fat, oven-baked version. For quick clean-up and extra crispiness, lay a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet; and, then place a wire rack on top of the foil.

INGREDIENTS:
• skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut in 1-2 inch squares
• non-fat or low-fat buttermilk
• flour for dredging
• finely crushed corn flakes for dredging
• salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 375. Prepare three large bowls for dredging chicken - 1 with flour seasoned with salt and pepper, 1 with buttermilk, and 1 with crushed corn flakes. Prepare baking pan by laying a sheet of foil over a cookie sheet; and then place a wire rack on top of the foil. Season chicken with salt and cut into 1-2 inch pieces.

Drag chicken pieces in flour. Shake off excess flour and coat with buttermilk. Next, generously coat chicken with corn flakes, and place on rack of your baking pan. Bake nuggets for 15 minutes. These keep well for the next day’s lunch box so make plenty!

The next time you reach into the pantry or freezer to grab something simple to prepare for dinner, take a good analytical look at the ingredients. The idea is not to serve food that is adequate but rather food that is nutritious. Remember that not all of your little ones may require the same servings of food.

Would you like more Kid-Friendly Recipes? Christine Steendahl – “The Menu Mom” invites you to visit Kid Approved Meals at http://www.kidapprovedmeals.com to download your personal 13 week breakfast and lunch menu made just for kids!

I’m a bit behind today,  so I don’t have time to write a full post for you - which makes me kinda sad, because I look forward to posting on this blog everyday!

Instead, I’ll share some recipes that I posted on WAHM Articles last night.  Who can resist a cute Bunny Salad and a Funny Face Carrot Salad, complete with curly “hair?”