With the state of the economy many families are looking for ways to cut expenses and stretch the family dollar. One way is to eat out less and do more cooking at home. You’ll not only be saving money but you will be able to ensure your family is eating nutritionally healthy foods.
Using the weekly grocery ads, have your child help you plan a weeks worth of menus and put together the shopping list. Explain to your child the importance of establishing a food budget and purchasing items on sale. Allow your child to select one item from the ad, of their choosing, to put on the list. If your child is not yet old enough to read, cut the food item pictures from the ad and glue or tape them onto a legal pad or into a spiral notebook to make a visual shopping list.
Your child can sharpen his fine motor skills by cutting coupons from the Sunday paper and magazines. Encourage your child to match the coupons to the items in the weekly grocery ad. Put the coupons into an envelope that can be attached to the legal pad or spiral notebook shopping list and you’re ready to go grocery shopping.
Allow your child to accompany you to the store and make a game out of finding all the items on your shopping list. Use this shopping experience as an opportunity to teach your child how to select fresh produce, how to comparison shop, and the importance of sticking to the shopping list in order to save money. If you think your child can tolerate the crowds, do your grocery shopping on a Friday or Saturday when the store is handing out free samples or offering items to taste. Don’t forget to take along your reusable shopping bags. Once the groceries are purchased and you’ve made your way back home, enlist your child’s help in putting the groceries away.
Every good cook needs cooking tools and children are no exception. Buy your child a kid-sized apron or to save even more money, make one using an old bath towel. Lay the towel vertically and cut a circular hole a third of the way down. The towel will easily slide over your child’s head for wearing and it’s easy to wash. Assemble some kitchen utensils that will be specifically for your child’s use. Make sure the kit includes pot holders, a wooden spoon, measuring cups and measuring spoons, a wire whisk and any other utensils that would be age- appropriate. Utensils can be extra ones you already have or they can be purchased inexpensively at a dollar store. Store the utensils in a kitchen drawer or storage bin that can be easily accessed by your child. Make sure teaching safety issues around kitchen equipment is a priority.
Talk to your child about his favorite foods and help him discover what foods he can make himself. Those foods might include cereal, a peanut butter sandwich, chocolate milk. Ask him what new foods he would like to learn to make. Purchase a cook book for your child or better yet save the money you would have spent on a cookbook by doing an online search for kid friendly recipes. There are many web sites that offer simple and tasty step-by-step recipes for a beginning cook.
Children who help with meal planning, grocery shopping and cooking are more likely to be interested in trying new foods. Meal planning, shopping for the ingredients and cooking your own meals provides opportunities for you to spend valuable time with your child. It also encourages healthy eating habits in your child that will last a lifetime.
February 11, 2009
February 6, 2009
No Cost Ways - Except For Your Time-To Send Love to Your Kids on Valentine's Day
Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to make their toast or their sandwich.
Tuck a love note into their lunch bag or backpack.
Give your child coupons redeemable for things like a half hour of your undivided attention, their favorite dinner/dessert, playing a board game with them, etc. Send your child on a scavenger hunt around the house to find the coupons.
Tuck a love note into their lunch bag or backpack.
Give your child coupons redeemable for things like a half hour of your undivided attention, their favorite dinner/dessert, playing a board game with them, etc. Send your child on a scavenger hunt around the house to find the coupons.
January 9, 2009
Winnie-the-Pooh in comeback after 83 years
LONDON (Reuters) – The first official sequel to the original Winnie-the-Pooh books will appear in October, its publishers said on Saturday, more than 80 years after the honey-loving bear first appeared in print.
"Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" is the follow up to A.A. Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh" and "The House At Pooh Corner," which were famously illustrated by E.H. Shepard.
The new book, published by Egmont Publishing in Britain and Pengiun imprint Dutton Children's Books in the United States, will be written by David Benedictus, who produced an audio adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh starring actress Judi Dench.
Mark Burgess, who has already drawn classic children's characters including Paddington Bear and Winnie-the-Pooh, is to provide the illustrations. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood will hit the shelves on October 5.
"We have been hoping for a good many years that we might one day be able to offer the world a sequel which would do justice to the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories," said Michael Brown on behalf of the trustees of Pooh Properties, which manages the affairs of the Milne and Shepard estates.
"The original books were one of the greatest celebrations of childhood in any language, but we believe that David Benedictus and Mark Burgess have captured the spirit and quality of those original books."
The story of Winnie-the-Pooh and the original illustrations are still popular today.
A collection of Shepard's drawings for the Pooh books fetched around $2 million at auction in London last month.
"Return to the Hundred Acre Wood" is the follow up to A.A. Milne's "Winnie-the-Pooh" and "The House At Pooh Corner," which were famously illustrated by E.H. Shepard.
The new book, published by Egmont Publishing in Britain and Pengiun imprint Dutton Children's Books in the United States, will be written by David Benedictus, who produced an audio adaptation of Winnie-the-Pooh starring actress Judi Dench.
Mark Burgess, who has already drawn classic children's characters including Paddington Bear and Winnie-the-Pooh, is to provide the illustrations. Return to the Hundred Acre Wood will hit the shelves on October 5.
"We have been hoping for a good many years that we might one day be able to offer the world a sequel which would do justice to the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories," said Michael Brown on behalf of the trustees of Pooh Properties, which manages the affairs of the Milne and Shepard estates.
"The original books were one of the greatest celebrations of childhood in any language, but we believe that David Benedictus and Mark Burgess have captured the spirit and quality of those original books."
The story of Winnie-the-Pooh and the original illustrations are still popular today.
A collection of Shepard's drawings for the Pooh books fetched around $2 million at auction in London last month.
2009 Target FREE Family Nights at The Magic House
Some of the best things in life are free! The Magic House holds Target Free Family Nights every third Friday of the month from 5:30 pm to 9:00 pm. These special nights enable a family (no more than two adults and four of their own children) to enjoy the more than 100 hands-on exhibits in the museum. Reservations are not required.
2009 Target FREE Family Night Dates
January 16, 2009
February 20, 2009
March 20, 2009
April 17, 2009
May 15, 2009
June 19, 2009
July 17, 2009
August 21, 2009
September 18, 2009
October 16, 2009
November 20, 2009
December 18, 2009
2009 Target FREE Family Night Dates
January 16, 2009
February 20, 2009
March 20, 2009
April 17, 2009
May 15, 2009
June 19, 2009
July 17, 2009
August 21, 2009
September 18, 2009
October 16, 2009
November 20, 2009
December 18, 2009
December 3, 2008
Here For You: Helping Your Child Cope With Serious Illness
It goes without saying that when a young child faces a life-threatening illness, it is devastating for everyone involved.
Sesame Workshop's outreach staff has produced a DVD based around the concept of honest, open talk. It encourages children and adults to ask lots of questions, and looks to establish communication in both directions – adults with children, and children with adults.
This DVD tells the story of Sesame Street's Elmo visiting his cousin Chester in the hospital as he is treated for a serious illness. Chester is a Sesame Street Muppet who was created specifically for the Here for You project. With input from doctors, nurses, and children, Elmo helps Chester understand and express his feelings of fear, anger, and guilt. The DVD also features Danny, a young leukemia patient.
5,000 copies of the Here For You DVD to the nation's 250 children's hospitals, pediatric medical organizations, and children's palliative care programs. The nonprofit healthcare research and public policy organization, which is affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School, is also launching the Helping Children Cope With Serious Illness Fund (HCCwSIF). HCCwSIF will donate funds to participating children's hospitals in order to support full-time pediatric behavioral health specialists who will provide additional ongoing, outpatient, health counseling for children and families facing serious illnesses.
Sesame Workshop's outreach staff has produced a DVD based around the concept of honest, open talk. It encourages children and adults to ask lots of questions, and looks to establish communication in both directions – adults with children, and children with adults.
This DVD tells the story of Sesame Street's Elmo visiting his cousin Chester in the hospital as he is treated for a serious illness. Chester is a Sesame Street Muppet who was created specifically for the Here for You project. With input from doctors, nurses, and children, Elmo helps Chester understand and express his feelings of fear, anger, and guilt. The DVD also features Danny, a young leukemia patient.
5,000 copies of the Here For You DVD to the nation's 250 children's hospitals, pediatric medical organizations, and children's palliative care programs. The nonprofit healthcare research and public policy organization, which is affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School, is also launching the Helping Children Cope With Serious Illness Fund (HCCwSIF). HCCwSIF will donate funds to participating children's hospitals in order to support full-time pediatric behavioral health specialists who will provide additional ongoing, outpatient, health counseling for children and families facing serious illnesses.
November 13, 2008
How Much Sleep Do Kids Need?
The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Sleep provides some helpful guidelines regarding just how much sleep children need at different stages in their development. Keep in mind that these numbers reflect total sleep hours in a 24-hour period. So if your child still naps, you'll need to take that into account when you add up sleep hours.
Between Birth-Six Months, children need 16-20 hours
Between Six-Twelve Months, children need 14-15 hours
Between Ages 1-3, children need 10-13 hours
Between Ages 3-10, children need 10-12 hours
Between Ages 11-12, children need about 10 hours
Teenagers need about 9 hours of sleep per night
If those numbers are surprising, you're not alone. As adults, we're accustomed to needing 7-9 hours of sleep, and we're often forced to get by with far less. As a result, it might be tempting to think that our kids have similar sleep requirements, or that they should be able to cope fairly well with a few skipped hours here and there. However, kids who are regularly sleep deprived may exhibit some difficult behaviors. They may display frequent irritability, overreact emotionally, have difficulty concentrating, forget easily, wake often during the night, and may even display hyperactive behaviors.
The best thing you can do is simply move your child's bedtime up. This may sound impossible at first, but by moving the entire bedtime routine up half an hour, you'll help your child associate bedtime with an earlier time. In fact, you may be surprised to find that your child goes to sleep easily and sleeps through the night more regularly when well-rested.
Reference:
1Cohen, George J., M.D., F.A.A.P. (Ed.). (1999). American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child’s Sleep.
Between Birth-Six Months, children need 16-20 hours
Between Six-Twelve Months, children need 14-15 hours
Between Ages 1-3, children need 10-13 hours
Between Ages 3-10, children need 10-12 hours
Between Ages 11-12, children need about 10 hours
Teenagers need about 9 hours of sleep per night
If those numbers are surprising, you're not alone. As adults, we're accustomed to needing 7-9 hours of sleep, and we're often forced to get by with far less. As a result, it might be tempting to think that our kids have similar sleep requirements, or that they should be able to cope fairly well with a few skipped hours here and there. However, kids who are regularly sleep deprived may exhibit some difficult behaviors. They may display frequent irritability, overreact emotionally, have difficulty concentrating, forget easily, wake often during the night, and may even display hyperactive behaviors.
The best thing you can do is simply move your child's bedtime up. This may sound impossible at first, but by moving the entire bedtime routine up half an hour, you'll help your child associate bedtime with an earlier time. In fact, you may be surprised to find that your child goes to sleep easily and sleeps through the night more regularly when well-rested.
Reference:
1Cohen, George J., M.D., F.A.A.P. (Ed.). (1999). American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child’s Sleep.
October 17, 2008
Experts question benefit of school time-out rooms
By MICHAEL J. CRUMB, Associated Press Writer
DES MOINES, Iowa – After failing to finish a reading assignment, 8-year-old Isabel Loeffler was sent to the school's time-out room — a converted storage area under a staircase — where she was left alone for three hours. The autistic Iowa girl wet herself before she was finally allowed to leave. Appalled, her parents removed her from the school district and filed a lawsuit.
Some educators say time-out rooms are being used with increased frequency to discipline children with behavioral disorders. And the time outs are probably doing more harm than good, they add.
"It really is a form of abuse," said Ken Merrell, head of the Department for Special Education and Clinical Sciences at the University of Oregon. "It's going to do nothing to change the behavior. You're using it as an isolation booth."
Segregating children removes them from the positive aspect of the classroom and highlights that they're different from other children, said Stephen Camarata, director of the Kennedy Center for Behavioral Research at Vanderbilt University. And isolating an autistic child might be particularly counterproductive.
"They don't like being around other people so they might increase their negative behavior because they view it a reward," he said.
Though there is no data on the use of time-out rooms, Camarata speculates that they've become widespread as schools confronted a growing enrollment of children with behavior disorders.
"I believe it's because classrooms are much less flexible with more focus on compliance," he said.
The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, Calif., receives calls from parents across the country who complain about time-out rooms, said Cheryl Theis, an education advocate for the organization.
"Parents call and say their child's disability has been exacerbated by this and are traumatized by this," she said.
Merrell said he's encountered time-out rooms he felt were unsafe.
"I once consulted with a school in another state and had a weekly appointment with a child to do some counseling and when I got there they told me he was in a time-out room," he said. "He was in a janitor's closet with no windows, no ventilation, open cans of paint, a mop bucket with disinfectant and he had been in there for over an hour."
Merrell, who has published nearly 100 studies and 10 books on teaching social and emotional skills, said time-out rooms can be used effectively but seldom are. The key, he said, is to combine the time outs with social skills training.
Patti Ralabate, a special education analyst with the National Education Association, said time-out rooms are common but should be used sparingly.
"And when they are used, all of the educators involved need to have appropriate professional development to see how this is used and how to use them appropriately," she said.
Ralabate said a time-out room can be effective if it is intended to provide a space for a child to calm down and reflect on their behavior.
"If it is used to isolate the child, punish the child for a behavior, then we would view it as not productive and not positive," she said.
In Iowa, Doug and Eva Loeffler started to notice changes in their daughter in December 2004, soon after she began school in the Des Moines suburb of Waukee. It prompted them to take Isabel to University Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City for evaluations.
"We laid awake at nights thinking we'd have to institutionalize her," Doug Loeffler said. "We went to three evaluations at the hospital and all of a sudden we find out she's being mistreated."
Loeffler said they weren't told in school evaluation reports that their daughter had been restrained and placed in a time-out room. During one incident in December 2005, Isabel wet herself because she was locked in the room for three hours and not allowed to use a restroom, he said.
Loeffler said the time-out room rules required that before she could be released, she must sit on the floor with her legs crossed without moving a muscle for at least five minutes.
"If she said something, grimaced at them, they would restart the clock and she was not capable of doing that," Loeffler said. "That's why it was three hours."
Loeffler said the couple homeschooled Isabel until he took a new job and the family moved last year to California. Isabel has shown signs of progress and is back in public school, he said.
David Wilkerson, superintendent of the Waukee school district, declined to speak about the accusations because of the pending lawsuit. But he said time-out rooms are a "pretty common practice" and that the district complies with the state's guidelines for such rooms.
Loeffler said he is pressing ahead with the lawsuit and hopes to draw attention to the need for nationwide standards for time-out rooms.
DES MOINES, Iowa – After failing to finish a reading assignment, 8-year-old Isabel Loeffler was sent to the school's time-out room — a converted storage area under a staircase — where she was left alone for three hours. The autistic Iowa girl wet herself before she was finally allowed to leave. Appalled, her parents removed her from the school district and filed a lawsuit.
Some educators say time-out rooms are being used with increased frequency to discipline children with behavioral disorders. And the time outs are probably doing more harm than good, they add.
"It really is a form of abuse," said Ken Merrell, head of the Department for Special Education and Clinical Sciences at the University of Oregon. "It's going to do nothing to change the behavior. You're using it as an isolation booth."
Segregating children removes them from the positive aspect of the classroom and highlights that they're different from other children, said Stephen Camarata, director of the Kennedy Center for Behavioral Research at Vanderbilt University. And isolating an autistic child might be particularly counterproductive.
"They don't like being around other people so they might increase their negative behavior because they view it a reward," he said.
Though there is no data on the use of time-out rooms, Camarata speculates that they've become widespread as schools confronted a growing enrollment of children with behavior disorders.
"I believe it's because classrooms are much less flexible with more focus on compliance," he said.
The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund in Berkeley, Calif., receives calls from parents across the country who complain about time-out rooms, said Cheryl Theis, an education advocate for the organization.
"Parents call and say their child's disability has been exacerbated by this and are traumatized by this," she said.
Merrell said he's encountered time-out rooms he felt were unsafe.
"I once consulted with a school in another state and had a weekly appointment with a child to do some counseling and when I got there they told me he was in a time-out room," he said. "He was in a janitor's closet with no windows, no ventilation, open cans of paint, a mop bucket with disinfectant and he had been in there for over an hour."
Merrell, who has published nearly 100 studies and 10 books on teaching social and emotional skills, said time-out rooms can be used effectively but seldom are. The key, he said, is to combine the time outs with social skills training.
Patti Ralabate, a special education analyst with the National Education Association, said time-out rooms are common but should be used sparingly.
"And when they are used, all of the educators involved need to have appropriate professional development to see how this is used and how to use them appropriately," she said.
Ralabate said a time-out room can be effective if it is intended to provide a space for a child to calm down and reflect on their behavior.
"If it is used to isolate the child, punish the child for a behavior, then we would view it as not productive and not positive," she said.
In Iowa, Doug and Eva Loeffler started to notice changes in their daughter in December 2004, soon after she began school in the Des Moines suburb of Waukee. It prompted them to take Isabel to University Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City for evaluations.
"We laid awake at nights thinking we'd have to institutionalize her," Doug Loeffler said. "We went to three evaluations at the hospital and all of a sudden we find out she's being mistreated."
Loeffler said they weren't told in school evaluation reports that their daughter had been restrained and placed in a time-out room. During one incident in December 2005, Isabel wet herself because she was locked in the room for three hours and not allowed to use a restroom, he said.
Loeffler said the time-out room rules required that before she could be released, she must sit on the floor with her legs crossed without moving a muscle for at least five minutes.
"If she said something, grimaced at them, they would restart the clock and she was not capable of doing that," Loeffler said. "That's why it was three hours."
Loeffler said the couple homeschooled Isabel until he took a new job and the family moved last year to California. Isabel has shown signs of progress and is back in public school, he said.
David Wilkerson, superintendent of the Waukee school district, declined to speak about the accusations because of the pending lawsuit. But he said time-out rooms are a "pretty common practice" and that the district complies with the state's guidelines for such rooms.
Loeffler said he is pressing ahead with the lawsuit and hopes to draw attention to the need for nationwide standards for time-out rooms.
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