Bean Transfer Activity

Here is a great activity for building concentration and those helpful fine motor skills. You simply get two attractive cups or small bowls (porcelain or metals are best because children are attracted to the sounds it makes when the beans fall into them). Then you place whatever you like in one, it can be dried beans, rice, beads, get creative. Obviously these are "choking hazards" so you always want to be around when you are showing the child how to use them, also some kids are fascinated with sticking things up their nose and in their ears, so teaching them the proper use is very important! If you find that they are throwing the materials constantly...and after many times of saying "these are for transferring...we keep them on the tray....." then you might want to take the tray away for a few weeks and present again later. 

The idea of this activity to have to have the child transfer the materials from one cup to another by hand. They feel the texture, they hear the sounds as it drops in. Any items that spill they leave for last and pick up one at a time with their pincer grasp (finger and thumb). 

I got this cute set from the second hand store, for very cheap so if you don't have one keep your eyes open or maybe go to grandmas house and ask if she has something. :)

Making Butter

I don't know one child that doesn't like cream or butter! Walking through Costco I saw a container of heavy cream and had a flash back of being in elementary school, passing around a container and shaking my heart out to see the cool reaction that was about to take place...so I wanted to share this experience with the kids and they loved it! At first they shook their jars for not even a minute so I had to get it started a little. I kept opening up the lid to see if any reaction occurred, and finally there was cream! They looked so excited and when they tried it they wanted more...I told them "if you shake it really well then I'll open it for you!" so they did and finally it almost magically appeared to be butter! They loved it and put it on their broccoli for lunch and ate it all up!

Shaving cream fun!

Kids of all ages love to play with shaving cream! It is even more fun to add colors and see what happens when you mix two or more! With toddlers you have to watch them more closely because they tend to get silly!

If the older ones start to look bored (which takes a while) then you can have them draw shapes, letters, numbers, stories, ect.

Mortar and pestle Toddler Activity

Great toddler activity. Elijah loves to play with water and loves to eat ice. So instead of us making small chucks for him, he can do it himself! We got this mortar and pestle from ikea.

Counting with Clothes Pins

Great way to work on fine motor skills, strengthen those little finger and practice counting! I plan on putting numbers on them or maybe dots as well. If you plan on making this, choose a sturdy box to put clothes pins on because this one kept tipping. However that can be a good way to introduce balancing!

What is Attachment Parenting...

I keep hearing these two words...Attachment Parenting...and I have no idea what it is! I can take a wild guess that it has something to do with a child being attached to their parent...but nowdays who knows what it could mean, soo...I decided to go on handy dandy Google! Finally, after many articles that didn't get to the point, I came across this website with many helpful links, that explained pretty much what it is and gave many examples.

Funny but very SAD picture of our culture today...

Starting the quest for Cloth Diapers

I am recently on a quest for finding the best type of cloth diaper for my 20 month son. Some people may view this as a late transition, but "better late then never!" Right?  :)

My main reasons for switching to cloth is; save money in the long run, less stinky garbage in home, less garbage in landfills, and we love trying new things! Well its not really "new" being that people have done this for thousands of years, but newer to our culture!

So I have been up since 3:30 am, I can't fall back asleep because my poor little Bull Frog (20 month old son) has a really bad diaper rash, to the point he was screaming bloody murder when wiping and washing his bum, and I can't get it off of my mind (also the 6 month old baby is non-stop kicking my bladder and my stomach is growling!)

 Today was the first day we tried resuable diapers (Charlie Banana) and I wondered was this the reason he has a diaper rash??? I thought re-usable diapers prevented them?? As I read more and more I am learning that a lot of children are sensitive to polyester/ micro fleece linings, so I am thinking that maybe this is the reason?? Not 100% sure so please don't knock off these types of materials. I am however learning that Cotton and hemp materials are the way to go. Some helpful websites for me are below...

Natural V.S Synthetic

Diaper Pin Forum and website

Guide to Eco Friendly Cloth Diapers

So, as I get more info I will add it here and hope this helps any other newbies to reusable diapers, please leave any comments or advice below! Thank you!

UPDATE: Okay so its been about a week, and I figured the diaper rash was probably from his very liquidy bowel movement that day (or possibly liner which I haven't used again yet). I read that Coconut oil helps and is safe for cloth so I ran to my local healthy market; Matter of Health and bought some Nutiva Organic Coconut oil. So far so good! And it smells great! Oh and I purchased ECOS laundry detergent to wash the diapers in, its the only one I could find locally on a list of approved detergents for cloth diapers AND for a front loading HE washing machine.

Since last week I have ordered pre folded cloths 6x8x4 from amazon (which i still need to get a cover for because they are a bit too big for the Charlie Banana pocket diapers we have.)

We also did a home made diaper sprayer that we got the idea from another user on Diaper pin forum, and we found a video on you tube on how to make one. This ended costing about $25 instead of $45 on Amazon.

I am not crazy about spraying the poop on the toilet, it takes a little practice to get the whole routine down and keep everything sanitary. Doing home child care makes one very super sanitary! But I did find another video on cleaning poop on you tube! Love you tube! If you skip to the last section of the video she shows how to clean a messier poop (with out the liner). My little Bull Frog is mostly a messy pooper so its not as easy with him! But this video does help!

Okay, so until next time!

CLOTH DIAPER MEET-UP HELPFUL WEBSITE HANDOUT 

Helpful Websites

Forum (talk to other parents) Product reviews, Diaper Swapping, How to’s, blog

http://www.diaperpin.com/home.asp 

Forum, Diaper Swapping, great place to talk to other parents on many topics

http://www.diaperswappers.com/ 

Resuable Diaper Guide: Lots of helpful information (created by soft bums brand so a bit biased) 

http://www.softbums.com/assets/Reusable-Diaper-Information-Booklet.pdf 

Sewing Patterns 

http://www.cheekydiapers.com/Free-Cloth-Diaper-Sewing-Patterns.html 

www.YouTube.com: Great place to see different types of folds for flats and pre folds as well as reviews for all types of diapers.