April 2011 Reading and Craft Ideas

April books suggestions:

Happy Easter, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond, published by Harper Collins. From the author of the famous If You Give a Mouse a Cookie comes this delightful Easter book. I bought it as a board book to give to my 9 month old grandson. It is a charming story that teaches color names.
The Night Before Easter, by Natasha Wing, illustrated by Kathy Couri, published by Grosset and Dunlap. Following the format of the famous "Twas the Night Before Christmas", this adorable book takes you along with the Easter Bunny as he visits and leaves lovely gifts to a boy and girl. This is the book I am giving to my 3 year old granddaughter.



Cupcake Paper Flowers:

You will need: construction paper, glue, colorful muffin/cupcake papers, colored buttons

Out of green construction paper, cut some stems and leaves. Glue them to blue construction paper. Cut a sun shape out of yellow and add to the blue background. Choose some colorful paper liners and glue them to the top of the stems. Add a colorful button to the center of each "flower." You can add a sentiment if you decide to give your scene as a gift or a card.

NOTE:
Another wonderful craft to make adorable sock bunnies is available at this link

Poison Control

If you would like a magnet with the Poison Control toll free help number, follow this link. They also have other helpful brochures on lots of useful subjects. Check it out!

****NEW GUIDELINES FOR CARSEATS****

Make sure you are up to date on the recommendated guidelines for carseats just released by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Follow this link to see the new information or follow the link in the sidebar of my blog to AAP.

Unexpected Asthma Triggers

You might be surprised to read what they are. Follow the list here.

St. Patricks Day Pretzel

Here's a quick easy treat to make with kids.
You will need: a can of refrigerated bread stick dough
cinnamon
green decorating sugar

Use a section of bread stick dough to form a heart shape. Repeat with two other sections. Place the three heart shapes together to form a large shamrock. Use the rest of the sections in the same way. Place shamrocks on a lightly oiled piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with cinnamon and green sugar. Bake according to bread stick directions. Cool and enjoy.

Cooking With Kids

Looking for some good ideas for cooking with kids? There's a great magazine called "Chop, Chop" to help you. Follow this link to see what it's all about.

February 2011 Product Safety Recalls

Check the list at this site.

Having Trouble Getting The Kids to Bed?

Follow this link to get great ideas for making bedtime easier.

15 Signs Your child May Have ADHD

Ever wonder if ADHD has specific symptoms and behaviors? Well, here's a site that will answer your questions.

Can A Diet Cure ADHD?

Follow this link to find out the latest findings.

February 2011 Math Lesson-Graphing

Now that we have covered patterning and sorting in previous lessons, we move this month to graphing. Gathering data and interpreting the results are very important mathematical skills that children need to be comfortable with as they progress through the grades. This is always a fun topic since it can be used with so many different materials. Since we are fast approaching Valentine's Day, I decided to use candy hearts as my hands on material for this graph. This lesson is appropriate for children through first or second grade.

First, give your child an assortment of candy hearts. You may want to choose your colors carefully, as you will see later in this lesson. Have them sort by color.
Next, make a graph on plain paper. Have your child place numbers in the left column starting with 1 and the bottom going upwards until they reach 10. (You can go higher if you have given them more than ten of any one color candy).
Next, have them color the bottom square in each column to match each color candy in their bag. You can refer to my first picture to see how it should look.
Next, using 1 to 1 correspondence, have them color one square for each candy they have.
Then, have them make observations about what their graph shows.
Finally, have them write what those observations are, using words such as most, least, more than, less than, one more than, one less than, equal, plus, minus, difference, and all together. Older children can use the symbols  +, -, =, >, and <
In my sample, the sentences labeled with an "a" are the ones that would be made by younger children, while the "b" would be the comments or equations used by older children. You can prompt them to figure out more.
The reward can be that you get to eat the materials after you have completed the lesson! This can be done again with greater amounts in the spring with jelly beans, or any time of year with M & M's or any candies that come in lots of colors. Remember, Math is fun.

January Children's Products Safety Recalls

Follow this link to see the entire list.