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Pushing Kids to do Their Best

Written on February 6th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Emotional, February 2011, Preschool aged, School aged

This is a sensitive subject for me. I have mentioned before, but don’t like to go on and on about it, but Missy 10 is very bright. When she was four years old, she learned how to read fluently. I read a baby board book to her, showing her how I was sounding the letters out in the words, then left the room. When I came back, she was reading everything. Of course, in order to be able to do this, she already had been taught letter sounds. Basically, any time, right from when she was a baby, if she ever pointed to a letter and asked what it was, we’d tell her the name of the letter and the sound it makes. Then we’d move on and forget all about it.

I, of course, being a proud mum, bragged to my parents about it, who were equally proud. I kept tight-lipped about it with others, because to be reading to the extent she was, I knew it looked bad. I’m sure it looked like I’d been coaching a poor little four year old into being a competitive academic. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a shame, because I had every right to be proud of her! But I knew it made other parents feel not so great, and so I didn’t make a fuss.

I also learned to read at around this age too, so I think genetics plays a big part in her abilities. The only difference with me, was that once I got to school, I wasn’t comprehending as well as I was reading. By the time I had my daughter, I was aware that early reading ran this risk, so I made sure to nurture her comprehension as she read new things, so as not to hinder her progress as she got older. Thankfully, her comprehension was never a problem. In kindergarten, when teachers asked her to tell them what happened in a book, she’d say, ‘I don’t know!’, thinking they wanted her to quote the book verbatim. Once I explained to her that they just wanted an idea of what happened in the story in her own words, she was fine.

Of course, being so proud of her new skill, my then four year old did nothing to hide her pride, and rightly so! She would read whatever she saw out loud (including graffiti! *blush*), and soon I had parents criticising me, accusing me of not allowing her to have a childhood. Honestly, it’s not as if she did nothing else but read all day! I was accused of pushing her too hard, being too competitive, of valuing academic achievements over everything else. It still makes me quite angry, because not one of these people doing the judging had ever been into our home, nor witnessed our family life.

The day she turned five was quite funny. I was pregnant, but wanting to test again. I raced into the chemist before our family went out for a special birthday outing. I took my daughter in with me. As I browsed the pregnancy tests, my daughter read the labels of every single condom packet out loud! There was not a dry eye in the shop, as she factually stated: ‘ribbed for her pleasure, ultra sensitive, regular, fruit flavoured…’ and so on. So that was something…

It’s fair to say that I’m quite paranoid and conscious as a result, of not pushing my kids too hard. But there is this nagging part of me that wants my children to know that they can do anything if they work hard enough for it. I want them to know when it’s ok to push themselves. That they should put their best effort into whatever they attempt, no matter what the result, or their own natural ability or lack of ability.

Basically, I want my children to intrinsically want to strive to be their best, for themselves. To learn self discipline, satisfaction, and the value of hard work. I never want to be cruel. And believe me, after that experience with my then four year old, I know what it is to be accused of being a cruel, pushy parent.

Some of you might remember Missy now 10′s success in the spelling bee last year. The highlight for her was being chosen out of the school with one other child, to go on a trip to another school, and be challenged in something she loves doing. Her biggest hope at the moment is that she be asked to do the same again this year.

Seeing how important it is to her, and seeing an opportunity to teach her about goal-setting and self-discipline, I talked to her about things she could do to help her chances. I talked to her about her natural ability in spelling; the fact that she is quite ahead of her peers in this area, with very little effort. I explained that this was an advantage she had, but that other participants in the spelling bee clearly had it too. So we agreed that natural ability is great, but can only get you so far. To rely solely on it leads to cockiness.

I talked to her about how wonderful her spelling is now, but things she could do to become even better. When she came third last year, the word that she got stuck on, which got her ‘out’, was the word, ‘timbre’. As soon as I heard the announcer call it, I knew she wouldn’t get it. It’s simply not a part of her vocabulary, and not something she’d be able to guess easily. So, I encouraged my daughter to do more wide reading. She reads a great deal anyway, but I reminded her that she could borrow as many books at the library as she could read.

Sometimes, Missy 10 just reads the same books at home over and over again. In reading a wider variety, she expands her vocabulary. I find with her, all she needs is to see the written word, and she’s pretty good at remembering the spelling after that. There are two computer/internet games she loves: Mathletics and another Aussie spelling one. (I wish I could remember the name of it, but my daughter’s asleep as I write this. I’ll ask her the name of it, and share it tomorrow.) Both have spelling competitions where she can compete with other kids across the country. She absolutely loves playing these games! So this was my other suggestion: keep practicing on there, too.

I told her that I was proud of her spelling abilities as they are now, already. I am more than happy for her to just keep trying her best at school, and not try to cruise through just because it’s easy for her. But I also told her that if she wanted something desperately enough in life, that she could push herself, work extra hard, and have more chance of making her goals come to light.

So, do I think it’s cruel to push children too hard? Absolutely. But I have no qualms whatsoever with encouraging my children to push themselves hard for things they want in life. I think it’s an important skill to have. My daughter knows that no matter how hard she works, we’ll always insist that she have playtime/downtime. She knows that we will not allow her to beat herself up mentally if she doesn’t achieve perfection. The good news is though, that as time goes on, I think she’s seeing that perfection is an impossible thing to strive for. Over the years, she has put this pressure on herself: she knows she’s smart, so has had trouble understanding why she doesn’t always get what she believes would be a ‘perfect’ result in life.

I’m hell-bent on teaching her that as long as you’ve done your best, that’s all you can do. You may not get the mark you craved, but you can hold your head up with pride that you worked hard and gave an honest effort. Where do you draw the line when it comes to pushing your kids?

Other reading:

Regressive behavior in children

Helping kids to make choices

Emotional development – how to help children to talk about feelings

Learn by doing – laundry

Ten activities that enhance under fives’ language skills

Emotional development – initiative

Reflective listening

Students’ homework: how much should we help?

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Quiet Time With Caterpillars

Written on February 5th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Challenges, Cognitive, Experiences, February 2011, Language, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

Ok, I know it’s really hard to see the caterpillars in this jar. But I promise you, there’s loads of the buggers in there. I should know. I was sitting outside, trying to enjoy a quiet cup of dandelion tea away from the chaos inside, when they were climbing all over my legs.

I went back inside, to face the noise and arguments of my two younger children. It was afternoon, they’d played everything, done everything, and were at a loose end. I racked my brains as to what I could get them to do that would get them engrossed, happy and above all, quiet. Preferably for a long time. And aside from waiting until we get our own chooks to eat up all the caterpillars, how the hell was I going to get rid of them? Normally they don’t bother me, but there were so many of them and they were becoming a nuisance.

Sometimes, two problems come together to form a solution when you’re a mum, don’t they? I scooped as many caterpillars into a jar with some grass as I could. I plonked it on the table inside and told the kids to look at it. Was there ever a simpler way to keep kids quiet for a cranky mum than this?

They looked at it for ages. They were so excited! They talked about the colour of the caterpillars, about what they like to eat, how they turn into butterflies. Missy 10 is handy to have around at times like this, as she stores so much animal trivia in her head! She told them that some butterflies like to eat their cocoon, that some caterpillars shoot out poison and it can sting and make you itchy (spitfires).

Once they lost interest, I emptied the jar back into the yard, but thankfully, further away from our house where they were bothering me. They haven’t been back. It’s amazing how things just sort themselves out somedays, isn’t it?

Other reading:

Dealing with anger in children

Sibling rivalry solutions

Motherhood: cinch or sentence?

How do I stop tantrums?

Learning through everyday play

Teaching kindness to animals

Is it ever ok to lose your cool?

Evening adventure

Keepin’ it real

Slow down

Finding the time to do it all – time saving tips

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Cute Sandwich Cutter

Written on February 5th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, February 2011, Food, In the home, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

I got this cute little gadget when I had a bento splurge recently at J List.

I get so bloody sick of making the same old boring sandwiches everyday. Sure, Missy 10 helps out when she can, but it’s nice to break up the monotony for the kids and I. All you do is press the cutter into a sandwich, and it cuts four bite-sized sandwiches with crusts removed. (The crust that was cut off was so thin, I was hardly wasting any at all)

I love that it’s probably easier than dragging a knife through the bread and ripping it. I love knowing that the kids are more likely to sit down for longer and actually eat what I’ve made them. Most of all, I love the smile it brings to their faces. Plus, it’s so much more fun to open your lunch box to something so cute.

PS – this isn’t a sponsored post, just something I bought myself and loved the idea of.

Other reading:

The origins of food

Kids growing mushrooms

Picking our mushrooms

Buying in bulk

Our fruit garden is planted

Mr Three makes pea and ham soup

Quick rice pudding for cheats

A BPA free home the tight-arse way

Homemade LCM’s

Our experience with baby led solids

How to prevent childhood obesity

School supplies on a budget

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Knitting Project For Children – Finger Puppets

Written on January 16th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Craft, Experiences, Fine motor, Good times, Handmade, January 2011, Projects, Saving money, School aged

Remember yesterday, when I mentioned Missy 10 was knitting something special to her? Well, here’s the end result! (Well, part of it, actually. She still wants to glue a felt shell and tail onto the back) In case you can’t make out what this is, it’s a finger puppet of a Pokemon character named Squirtle. Yes, she’s obsessed with Pokemon…

She knitted this up in 8 ply acrylic yarn, on 4mm knitting needles. She started off with ten stitches, and just worked a rectangle until it was the length to fit her finger. She ran a needle through the stitches on the needle, then gathered them. She learned that this is how fingers on gloves are often finished off. I showed her how to fold the rectangle in half and sew the seam. Next time, it’ll be her turn to attempt it. Then, to customise her character, she made up some felt shapes, drew some detail onto them then glued them onto the puppet with craft glue. It was very simple, but she thrived on the creative process; deciding what she wanted the puppet to become, designing the features, and fiddling around putting them on.

I also gave her a fabric marker pen to work with before she cut the felt shapes out. This lets her erase what she felt were mistakes, with a wet cloth. I also taught her not to use hot water to do this, as this can set the ink into a stain. The great thing about fabric markers is that the ink on the fabric eventually becomes invisible anyway. It lets the work turn out a lot less grubby-looking than drawing on the fabric with a lead pencil.

I also looked through my own knitting stash, and have put together small stash to start her out with. Some balls of acrylic yarns, a knitting needle measuring gadget (great if you have a pair of needles where the size has worn off, but the needles themselves still work well), tape measure and some knitting needles. All of these things I already had, and either wasn’t planning on using or I already had duplicates of certain items. She was psyched!

We’ve decided to make our knitting together a one hour a day (minimum!) date. It’s nice to knit with someone who shares your interest, and both of us can’t stop chatting excitedly about all our ideas, and about knitting in general. We talk about what high school would be like, events in the past and her feelings on them, her friends, pretty much whatever she wants! Also, as my stress as a carer has really heated up lately, my carer support counselor has been driving home to me the urgent need for me to ensure I give myself self-care, or as it’s more widely known, me time.

I know me time should probably not be spent with my offspring, but if it makes me happy and relaxed, then honestly, why not? I’m very blessed to have the sort of child that even when I need down time, I choose to spend it with her.

She’s interested in making a scarf, next. She’s also looking forward to playing with her new puppet once the glues dries, and decorating her room with it. It’s also something fun we can make for Missy 2 and Mr 4. They love imaginative play, so these will be excellent homemade toys to nurture that.

Can you think of other handmade toys your school-child or you can make?

Other reading:
Teaching kids to knit: school holiday fun

Science experiments for school aged kids

Crochet for children

Book review: Zombie felties

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Teach Your Child Knitting

Written on January 16th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Craft, Fine motor, Good times, Handmade, January 2011, Projects, School aged

In Australia, we’re in the last weeks of the Summer holidays. It’s been fun, but now everyone’s getting a bit tetchy. Few of us have unlimited funds to do ridiculously exciting outings everyday, but it’s becoming clear before the kids get on each others’ (and our!) nerves, that they need something to do.

This is I why I think it’s great to teach school-aged kids how to knit. Missy 10 already knew the basics of it, but because she’s usually so busy with school, doesn’t get enough time to practice. What better time to have a go, than during school holidays? Our kids have hours and hours of time on their hands, and whilst it’s a great time to play and relax, sometimes kids don’t know what to do with so much spare time.

Knitting is also really cheap to get started with. Sure, you can spend a lot of money on beautiful wools down the track, but for beginners, cheap is best anyway. And to be honest, for the amount of time spent concentrating and being quiet (oh yes, I went there!) I’d say it’s a damn solid investment.

Even for my own knitting, I like to be relatively frugal. I use knitting needles that have either been handed down to me, and if I don’t have a certain size, nine times out of ten I can source them at the op shop or ebay for a dollar or two. I prefer old knitting needles anyway; to me they feel like there is magic in them. I can picture the ladies before me working on their projects, and feel as though I’m extending the continuum. Any money I save here allows me to buy high quality wools and yarns. I believe once you’re an established knitter, you deserve only the best materials.

I also have been able to to source many patterns for free on the internet, or for a couple of dollars. Ravelry and Knitty are my two favourite resources for knitting. There are also some great, easy knitting patterns for kids online. When I was nine, I became obsessed with knitting! I started out by reading beginners’ knitting books, and doing the projects in there. Basically, once your child can knit, there’s no reason for them not to start out on any beginner pattern that catches their eye. I also used to enjoy designing and knitting clothes for my toys.

Another great thing kids can do once they’ve mastered the basics of knitting is to attempt sampler squares of different patterns, such as stockinette stitch, moss stitch and ribbing. If your child enjoys the mastery of a computer game, there’s a fair chance they’ll get a kick out of a challenge like this too!

Ok, so knitting is cheap and enjoyable for kids. What are some of the direct benefits for the child?

- Knitting builds fine motor strength

- It challenges their eye-hand co-ordination

- It gives them great spatial awareness

- It is a great cognitive (intellect) building activity

- It encourages children to think in mathematical terms. Don’t believe me? Try knitting a pattern from a graph, or attempting a sampler pattern!

- Knitting is a great way for children to explore a new material. They learn about how fabrics can be made, the way they interlock together. They learn about how different sized needles, and different wool/yarn thicknesses affect the work they’re doing. They learn by working with the yarn and feeling it for long periods, the different properties of different fibres. For example, working with mohair is an entirely different experience to working with pure wool. Cotton doesn’t stretch very much, acrylic yarns don’t stay nice for very long, and so on.

- Knitting gives children a challenge and a purpose.

- Knitting gives children with a taste for fashion an outlet to channel it towards.

- It encourages children to have patience, and to work towards a goal.

- It keeps them quiet for hours!

So, how does one start out teaching their child to knit? I like to grab some 8 ply acrylic yarn (I usually can’t stand this stuff, but it’s perfect for learning on), and the needles in the size that complements the yarn (check the label for suggestions). I make sure I do it when I have a lot of time. Knitting with a child is a bonding experience, and not something to be rushed. It should be pleasurable.

It’s best at the first learning attempt for the grown-up to cast on the stitches and work one or two rows. This enables the work some more elasticity, which in turn makes the learning process less awkward. My Gram taught me to knit, by teaching me to recite as I worked, ‘in, round, under, off’ throughout the process of knitting one stitch. When you’re teaching a child to knit, a lot of this is repetition based, and takes a lot of practise. I’ve found it helped if I worked on a garter stitch sampler at the same time, (when my daughter was just starting out) so my daughter can look over my shoulder and see the ‘flow’ of the process.

As your child becomes more used to working with the needles and yarn, they’ll develop a comfortable habit in how they hold both. They will get their own little flow going! Knitting is a great confidence builder, too. What I love about it, is that a child can follow a pattern to learn the skill, or to make a certain, wanted project, or they can create something entirely original, if that is their wish. It can be as structured or open-ended as they choose! My motto with knitting is, build the skills first, then you can create anything later.

My daughter is really keen to learn more about knitting now, so we’ll be building up a cheap but nice stash for her. She’s really excited about this! You’ll be able to find out in a few days, what exactly it is she’s knitting!

If you don’t or can’t knit, why not consider asking a relative or friend who can, to teach your child? Do you or any of your children knit? Why not start with your child these holidays?

Other reading:

Knitting project for children – finger puppets

Crochet for children

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‘Why Don’t You Just Give Your Kid Contact Lenses?’

Written on January 14th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Care, Challenges, January 2011, Parenting, Soap box

This is a question I’ve been asked frequently since Missy 10 started wearing prescription glasses full-time at the age of five. I’ve been told by other ‘experts’ on my child (read: busy bodies) that it’s cruel for me to send my child to school with a reason for kids to tease her. It’s cruel, because apparently, according to these ‘experts’, that she won’t feel confident, or attractive. (Of course! I forgot to teach my daughter that her sole purpose in life was to focus on her appearance, because that’s all women are good for, right? I’m guessing that all the science she does and books and learnin’ are a waste of time too?)

Apart from the most important point in all this, which is that other parents’ choices aren’t anyone else’s business, and apart from the fact that the only experts on our child are us, the parents, I have many good reasons why I don’t get her contact lenses.

I’m not prepared to pay for expensive lenses when there are other mouths in this house to be fed, and possibly other children who may (but hopefully not) end up needing glasses also. Not in the name of vanity, I won’t.

My daughter actually needed glasses, not lenses when she started out wearing them, as one eye was severely turned inward. Glasses could help to straighten this problem, and train the eye ahead, whereas lenses could not.

I didn’t feel that my daughter was or is at a stage where she can competently and confidently place the lenses in her eyes. Also, I’ve never used lenses, so I don’t feel confident in my ability to help her. (But I would love to try out some cool coloured ones, one day!) The idea of her getting an infection unnecessarily, concerns me. I’ve heard that there can be other risks with contact lenses, and for growing eyes, I don’t feel it’s worth the risk. Poor hygiene when using contacts can be extremely dangerous, and whilst I like to drum the importance of hygiene into my kids, I’m not ready to hand the responsibility of that with lenses over to my daughter at this age.

My daughter has been teased in the past about her glasses, yes. Probably not as much as she would’ve been back in the years when I went to school, kids were more brutal and teachers turned a blind eye. Do I want my daughter to be teased? Of course not! Is it my fault or her fault for not conforming when she does get teased? Absolutely not. I teach my children not to tease or bully others, and that’s the best I can do. If more parents did this, then perhaps that would cut out the bullying problems in schools better than everyone else having to change who they are to suit someone whose opinion just doesn’t matter. It’s important to me that I teach my children not to change who you are for anyone, especially not rude people. Lead, don’t follow, is our mantra in this family.

No one wants their child to be bullied, and when it happens, I help my daughter through it. But let’s face it; we become who we are based on our life experiences. We become stronger people, more compassionate people, when we aren’t shielded from the life condition. If my daughter weren’t teased about glasses, kids would find something else. Some kids just look for reasons to tease, and I can’t control her entire life and all the experiences she is going to have. But I can support her if something bad happens, I can advocate for her at the school, also. Best of all, I can teach her how to cope with the arseholes of the world. She’s going to need to learn how to do that!

As much as I wish she didn’t need glasses, and I know my daughter does as well, the good thing that has come out of this, is that she has now had an experience which I believe has been very character building and enables her to empathise with others in a similar situation. I know she wouldn’t tease someone about wearing glasses, ever.

But for me, possibly the most important reason that I don’t give my daughter lenses, is because she doesn’t want them. A question that these nosey parker ‘experts’ have failed to ever bother asking. Now, as a parent, there are things my daughter doesn’t want to do that she has to do, like it or not. We’re the parents, and we get the final decision. But not on something purely based on vanity. My daughter would be the one who’d have to put these into her eyes everyday, and to be honest, the idea frightens her and grosses her out. I don’t think it’s wise to force this on her if she feels this way.

After all that’s said and done, I remember my daughter’s last eye appointment (she’s due for another one, which has gotten me thinking about this again). My partner took her, whilst I stayed at home. They were told that her eyesight had drastically improved. Looking back, I now wonder if she actually even needs to be wearing them full time at all! Of course, things were pretty hectic at the time, and the idea hadn’t occurred to me. Her eye has drastically straightened out lately, too. We’re hoping she may not need surgery for this, after all. But I’m going to contradict everything I’ve said above, now. When we go to her next appointment, I’m going to ask if she actually needs to be wearing glasses full time anymore, or just for reading. I wonder if optometrists and opthalmologists think to tell people if they don’t need to be wearing glasses permanently?

I want to ask, because I know it’d be the best gift I could give my child. I know she makes the best out of wearing glasses, and is as positive about it as she can be, but I also know that she doesn’t like having to wear them. A couple of years ago, our family had a little photo shoot, and it occurred to me, she doesn’t need to wear them just to have her photo taken. So, I let her take them off, and she was so excited, it gave her this gigantic lift! I so badly would love to give her that again one day, not for peer pressure, or appearance reasons, but to give her that same sense of freedom all over again.

What about you? Do any of your kids need glasses? Do you let them wear contacts sometimes?

Other reading:

Back to school: does your child need glasses?

Upset

How I saved almost $800 on my daughter’s glasses

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Mattel’s Laugh and Learn Learning Book

Written on November 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Music, November 2010, Reviews, Toddler

Sponsored by Nuffnang

Look at what Missy 2 was lucky enough to receive in the post. It’s a Laugh and Learn Learning Book from Mattel. This title is called, ‘Counting animal friends’. It’s an interactive book with a cute sun button which lights up and depending on which page your child is looking at, makes different sounds. It:

- reads the story to the child
- counts the animals
- makes the animal sounds
- plays songs

I think this book is adorable, and the sound isn’t too noisy or annoying, like some toys. My kids are all obsessed with books, so this caught everyone’s attention. Anything that promotes a love of reading to my kids is encouraged by me.

This book is aimed at babies and toddlers between 9-36 months old. Missy 2 has become utterly attached to it. She sits down playing with it for long periods, pointing at the animals and making the sounds. She likes saying the numbers, too. Her favourite part is looking at the ducks in the book, pretending to flap her ‘wings’ and saying, ‘quack quack!’. She’s even taken to falling asleep on top of it every night.

This book is highly age/stage appropriate, being very simple and appealing to this age group. Mr 4 is extremely interested in counting and numbers at the moment, and as soon as he spotted the book, asked, ‘has this got numbers? Cool!’

I’d also like to add my own little story about Mattel toys. We have always bought a lot of Mattel toys over the years, because they last a very long time. My two younger kids are still playing with a lot of Missy 10′s toys from when she was a baby. They love pushing around her push-along activity puppy and playing with her Little People dollhouse, car, bus, and of course, the dolls that come with it.

As any parent could tell you, little kids can be rough on their toys. Most of our Mattel toys have been thrown around at some time or another, either due to a tantrum, or just from excitement. But all our Mattel toys are still going strong.

But what I am really wanting to tell you about it, is what happened with some of our Mattel toys during our flood in the childrens’ playroom. We had a Mattel Flip Phone on the floor, and a Laugh and Learn Learning Home, which you can see here, both got saturated.

At first, the electronics in these toys didn’t work. But after a couple of weeks, once they’d dried out, they were working again! So please, if your Mattel toys ever get wet and stop working, don’t throw them out! Let them dry out, and they should be fine. We’re very impressed here.

Now I’m going to leave you with a quick video of Missy 2 enjoying her new book. It shows you how the book works, and how much she likes playing with it.

What’s your child’s favourite Mattel toy? Or your favourite, even?

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Learn by doing – laundry

Written on October 14th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, Social

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.

- Ancient proverb

Following on from my recent post about initiative, I involved Mr 4 and Missy 2 in washing some clothes. I had lots of laundry to catch up on and hang out to dry. So I set up a plastic tub with warm water and Ecostore laundry powder (nice and gentle for little hands) and some laundry that had minimal soiling. Being a water activity, of course it’s important to always supervise young children.

Doing household chores together is a great learning opportunity for kids. They learnt/talked about:

- the different names of clothing: ‘what type of clothing is this?’ Eg, shirt, dress, undies, etc.

- the concept of people having a place in the family, and their own possessions: ‘who’s shirt is this?’

- colours: ‘what colour is this shirt?’

- cause and effect: ‘why is the water becoming so brown?’

- the sequence of events: first the children used soapy water, then scrubbed the clothing, then we rinsed with clear water, squeezed the excess liquid out and finally we hung them out to dry.

- how to play together. Missy 2 and Mr 4 had a few disagreements during this activity. This gave us a chance to talk about their feelings and listen to each other.

- sensory awareness: children can learn about concepts such as wet/dry, warm/cold, etc.

The children also got a huge amount of exercise for their little muscles! Picking up wet clothing can be heavy work…

It also puts their fine motor skills through their paces as they squeeze… squeeeze… squeeeeeeeeze! the water out of the clothes.

You can also let them help with pegging the clothes out to dry on a small, child-height clothesline. I didn’t, only because we had two puppies with very dirty feet hanging around! But at least this kept my kids busy whilst I hung out all the wet clothes.

What household chores do your children like to help with?

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Picking our mushrooms

Written on August 15th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in August 2010, Cognitive, Fine motor, Food, Going green, Preschool aged, Saving money, School aged

I hope everyone’s had a relaxing weekend. I’ve been trying to soak a lot of water out of the carpet after our flooding. It should be dry soon, fingers crossed!

The kids have been having fun since they discovered we have grown two huge mushrooms! After we started with this kit, I found out that winter isn’t mushroom season. Apparently, every other season is. So normally, we’d expect to get more mushies than this amount, but it was still exciting for the kids, and these were so large, it really bulked up tonight’s dinner. But more on that later…

Missy 9 and Mr 4 enjoyed picking their home grown mushrooms all by themselves.

They gave our mushroom farm another misting of water, which they love to do.

Missy 9 and Missy 2 wanted to help cut the mushrooms up for tonight’s dinner, which is spaghetti bolognaise. I gave them a blunt knife each, and this kept them busy for a long time.

Missy 9 also had fun mincing the garlic to go with it.

Missy 9 watched the mushrooms and garlic saute in the pan, and we talked about all the B vitamins that mushies provide, what sauteing is, and she swooned at the smell of it! She’s really showing an interest in being involved with the cooking lately, and learning as much as she can.

It’s been such a lovely, relaxing, slow Sunday, and I think what better way for the kids to while away the hours than to pick fresh, home grown produce and prepare it for dinner?

Here’s my confession, though: my two older kids don’t like eating mushrooms very much. But they will eat it chopped up finely into a spaghetti bolognaise or beef stroganoff or similar. And they especially love trying it when they’ve helped to grow it. Look at this pic and tell me if you can even notice two gigantic mushrooms chopped through it.

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