Here are just some of the things that kids can learn when you cook
with them:

• Motor skills. When you’re cooking with kids, you’re
  moving plates around and pouring items. When they help, they improve their
  motor skills.
• Math. Cooking involves measurements and times which are
  important foundations in math. Cooking with kids gets them used to using math
  in a daily environment which makes them more comfortable with it and therefore
  more proficient at it.
• Taking care of themselves. Children who learn how to cook
  are less likely to be adolescents that eat out all of the time. They know
  how to take care of themselves in the kitchen so they will.
• Attention and focus. Nobody wants to eat burned cookies
  and your kids will rapidly learn to focus on the task at hand if they’re
  in charge of making sure the cookies don’t burn!

Here are some ideas for cooking with kids that help you to
teach them these skills without causing too much of a mess or safety risk in
the kitchen:

• Stick to recipes that are simple. Cooking with kids isn’t
  the same as cooking a romantic four-course meal for your spouse. You should
  stick to one or two items that have only a few ingredients each so that the
  kids can be involved with all parts of cooking.
• Let children find a favorite dish and let them make it once a week.
  Yes, you might get sick of it but stability is good for kids and if you know
  that you’re always cooking spaghetti together on Tuesdays, you enhance
  that.
• Start early if you want the cooking to be done at a certain time.
  It’s not healthy to cook under stress and it’s not a good habit
  for kids to get into so make sure you have plenty of time to make the meals.
• Read recipe books with your kids and have them pick out some of
  the dishes. If they’re involved in the planning, the shopping
  and the cooking, they’ll develop good food habits, learn great lessons
  and enjoy their meals.
• Have fun. You will look back on cooking with kids as hours
  that were spent together. These will be fond memories so enjoy them while
  you can.

Technorati Tags:cooking, kids, children, education, learning, homeschool, preschoolers, toddlers

At its basic level,
science is the study of the world. What could be more important
during the preschool years? And yet, what comes more naturally to preschoolers
who are already so inquisitive about the world around them? Make the most of
your child’s preschool years by engaging that inquisitiveness and applying
it to the study of science. By doing this, you encourage a
life long interest in the world around your child which will contribute to all
levels of learning. And, if your child is interested in science, your child
will be more interested in life in general!

Here are just a
few ideas for including science in your preschooler’s daily life:

• Encourage
  her to ask questions.
  And then encourage her to try and find answers. In other words, when she asks
  why leaves fall off of the trees, encourage her to go outside and pick up
  some leaves and discuss all of the possibilities with her. Anything hands-on
  in the world is good for science.
• Find
  computer software programs that include science for preschoolers.
• Head
  to the museum.
  There are interactive children’s museums in most cities where you can
  get hands-on science that will engage your preschooler’s mind and excite
  her about science.
• Use a
  preschool curriculum that includes science as a major subject of study.
  Worksheets, activities and projects all based on science will be a part of
  your child’s formal education all the way through college so get started
  early on making it enjoyable.
• Use
  the changes in your preschooler’s body as a starting point for science
  discussions.
  The human body is one of the science things that your child will always have
  at her fingertips. And since she’s growing so fast, there will be changes
  that you can point out and discuss with her to help her see how science will
  always be a part of her life.
• Watch
  educational science videos geared towards preschoolers during downtime
  to help your child associate science with a fun part of the day.

Science
is a terrifically important part of your preschooler’s education.
It’s the study of all of the things happening in and around her. By making
it fun and engaging, you can encourage your child to always be interested in
it. And this is important not only because it’s going to make life itself
more exciting for her but also because it will give her an edge up in school.
This is particularly true for female children who, unfortunately, still aren’t
encouraged as much as boys are to explore science and science-based careers.
Make use of your preschooler’s natural interest in the world around her
to make science a lifelong experience for her.

Technorati Tags:preschool, science, education, learning, homeschool, kids, children, toddlers, preschoolers

Relax. This isn’t your worst nightmare. And although it’s a difficult situation which must be dealt with carefully, it’s certainly one that you’re capable of managing. It’s true that you can’t protect your kids from the horrors of the world, but you can use every opportunity as a learning example for giving your child the skills necessary to deal with the difficult situations that the world will bring to you. And teaching your child how to deal with bullies is one step in that learning process.

The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: From Preschool to High School–How Parents and Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle of Violence

Remember that the best attack against bullying is to teach your child preventative measures from an early age. Help your child to develop self-esteem so that he or she does not allow him (or her) self to be bullied. Also teach your child to handle problems (such as issues in sharing with other kids) on his or her own with appropriate behavior. And always create an environment in which your child feels safe to come discuss the problems that he or she may be having with others and to problem solve about them with you.

Taking the Bully by the Horns – Children’s Version of the Best Selling Book, "Nasty People"

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The best way to help your
child first start to learn your phone number is to make the process of learning
it into a game or song. By putting a melody to the recitation of the phone number
– in the same way that we all have a familiar melody for reciting the
ABCs – you can make it easier for your child’s memory to be jogged
about what the phone number is. This makes learning it easier since it’s
a long number for a young child to remember without this extra help.

Teaching your child to remember
this phone number will require ongoing practice. Like with learning all things,
your child is going to need to practice the phone number again and again in
order to have it ingrained into his or her memory. Because the phone number
is such a short and simple activity though, you can practice learning it all
throughout the day, no matter where you are with your kids. Once you have taught
your child the basics of learning his or her phone number, you can ask periodically
throughout the day what the number is in order to get in this practice.

While it’s important
to teach your child your home phone number, it’s also important to remember
that a safety lesson needs to go along with learning it. You don’t want
your child to be giving your home phone number out to everyone he or she meets,
so you want to make sure to instill that this is a special number that you use
just with people you know. After your child knows the phone number, you can
explain that if your child ever gets lost from you and needs to find you, it’s
okay to give this number to an adult to help find you. Take each step in turn:
learn the phone number, practice the phone number, cover the safety reasons
and purpose of knowing the phone number.

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This helps to eliminate the
confusion of “stranger danger”. The main problem with the old campaign
was that kids had trouble identifying who a stranger in their lives was. They
saw the janitor at dad’s work every time they went in there so they didn’t
think that he was the scary stranger. Or the true stranger in the park would
introduce himself by name and kids would think that meant that he wasn’t
a stranger anymore. By teaching your children less about the specifics of who
is a stranger and instead teaching them to come talk to you before they talk
to someone, you reduce this confusion.

Establish a pattern for your
children which they can follow to keep them safe. Explain to them that they
need to check with you before spending time with anyone. This means that they’ll
ask you before they walk down the street to grandma’s house, you’ll
know which friend they are on the playground with and you’ll be able to
get a good glimpse at the stranger who just approached your child at the park.
At all levels, this type of interaction with your child keeps her safe from
others, strangers and all, because you know where she is and who she is with.

More importantly, this pattern
helps to keep you in regular communication with your child. By having your child
come to you for permission to spend time with others, you teach your child about
how to discern who is and isn’t appropriate to spend time with. It may
be life-saving when she is young in that she will be less likely to wander off
with an abductor but it can also be life-saving when she is a teen and she comes
to you to discuss the pros and cons of dating a certain boy. The pattern will
extend to many lessons about human interaction, not just the immediate threat
of “stranger danger”.

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