Mr 4′s been practicing opening and closing the buttons on his shirt, lately. This is an exciting time for me, as it shows a willingness to learn some self-help skills. Every new skill brings him and I more autonomy. It’s also an exciting stage for Mr 4, as he gains self confidence at being able to do things for himself.
Lately, he’s been regressing in his behaviour due to stresses and changes in his family. A major way this manifested itself was his unwillingness to dress himself anymore. Yes, he’s perfectly capable. I’m hoping that learning this new skill signals a move away from his regression.
Learning to fasten and unfasten buttons involves a lot of problem-solving skills. First, the child tries to roughly pull the two front halves of the shirt open, almost ripping buttons and fabric away. When I see this happening, I explain to my kids that this damages their clothes. Then, I offer to show them how to do it without ripping anything. At first, my kids usually refuse, and keep ripping at it, then give up and ask me to do it for them. Over time, curiosity gets the better of them and they become more willing to be shown how.
After this, it takes a lot of practice, but they get there! Oh my god, the pride that spreads across their faces when this happens is priceless. Performing this task does wonders for their eye-hand coordination and it strengthens the muscles in their hands. I find it’s a great lead-up to learning to tie their shoelaces later on, a more complex task.
This is Mr 4′s last year before he starts school, and I’ve worked hard on preparing him for it. His mastery of this skill is another stepping stone on the path to school readiness.
If kids are interested, or are finding learning this skill too difficult, they can always practise on doll’s clothes or dress up clothes. Often, it’s easier to learn how to use buttons if you’re not wearing the clothing, and looking down at what you’re doing. Dress-up clothes are often over sized items from parents, which give more generous movement.
What self-help skills are your children learning at the moment?
So yeah, it was my birthday a few days ago… Been having a wonderful time, despite having to stay home waiting for a plumber to come around. My birthday strangely was celebrated more heavily yesterday than the actual birthday the day before. So, after a solid case of cabin fever we realised we were beyond overdue to shop for our groceries. With Missy 9 at school, we took Mr 4 and Missy 2 shopping with us.
We like to teach them how to shop and get them as involved in the process as possible, bringing items from the shelves to the trolley, and packing the groceries away when we get home. These jobs, they do with relish. They’re learning excellent self-help skills that will serve them well in grown-up life.
…But today when we went shopping, they learnt that food doesn’t just come from the supermarket. In fact, now it’s Spring, everything looks different when we drive to the supermarket. And it was that drive that taught more about where food truly comes from than anything we could ever teach them at the shops.
Because this is what they saw out of our car’s window today. Fields and fields of bright yellow canola. They didn’t know what canola was, of course, so we explained to them about margarine and canola oil as foods, and they looked confused. Mr 4 asked, ‘so do we eat the flowers?’ Which led to a conversation about how the oil needs to be pressed out of the plants and made into margarine, or just sold as the oil itself. I could see him thinking it over. To give you some idea of what the hills we drove through looked like, we had splashes of bright yellow and vivid emerald green to look at for most of the drive.
We also talked to the kids about that deep green in the fields. It’s also food we buy at each grocery trip. Wheat. So our kids learnt about how the wheat grains get crushed to make flour for our bread and pasta, etc.
I don’t have a photo, but my fiance stopped the car to let the kids out to talk to some calves, and yes, that became another supermarket topic too! Missy 2 ended that convo with an enthusiastic, ‘bye moo!’
Aww…
(I must make a special thank you to my lovely fiance who gave me the phone/camera these photos were taken on, for my birthday. Love you!)
Written on May 25th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
It is almost Winter here, and already the weather’s freezing. Last week, we bought a leg of ham from Aldi for only $25, and amazingly it has been really lovely ham, despite being half the price we’d normally pay at a larger supermarket or butcher. We’ve enjoyed having it sliced into ham steaks with eggs and sliced for sandwiches. But now it’s whittled down a bit, we wanted to make sure there was enough meat left on to make my favourite pea and ham soup.
My fiance has been nagging me and nagging me to blog about this, but I thought, ‘everyone knows how to make pea and ham soup, don’t they?’ But then I remembered last year, describing it to my Greek girlfriend on the phone, and she’d never heard of it, let alone tried it. So, I’ve succumbed to my fiance’s pressure, and here it is in all its yummy glory. Perfect for a chilly evening dinner.
Have I mentioned my three year old son has an aversion to meat? Whilst he is outgrowing some of his dinner time battles, it can still be a challenge to ensure he gets everything he needs at dinner time. I told him I was making this soup today, and he begged me to let him help. I know Missy 9 would’ve loved this activity and could’ve learnt a lot about the peeling and chopping of veges, but alas, she was at school, and it had to be put on early. It was a treat for her to arrive home hungry to the smell of hot pea and ham soup cooking, though!
At this point, I should mention we are currently stove-less and oven-less. We’ve decided in the next month or two, we’ll buy a new stove/oven. We originally only had a stove, but the gas bottle ran out (gas isn’t billed out this way, we buy bottles) and we couldn’t justify buying a refill if we only plan to use it for a month or so. We prefer electric, so that’s what the new model will be. Anyway, this is why this soup was cooked in the crock pot (or slow cooker, whichever you prefer to call it). It was great, it meant my son could stand safely on a chair with the crock pot turned off, and help out.
We were a great little team; I chopped veges and he put the ingredients in. So, for your pleasure, my son will walk you through the recipe:
As you can see, we left a lot of meat on the bone for this soup. You can buy ham hocks without having to buy a whole leg of ham like this, but we find with our family of five, there’s not usually enough meat for everyone to really have a good helping, so I now prefer using our leg of ham at the end of the slicing stage. Pop it in…
We add a whole bag of dried, green split peas (also known as blue boilers)
If you cook this for long enough, the peas just fall apart and become part of the liquid. It also makes it really yummy and thick.
Next, I chopped the vegetables and my son added them to the pot. This batch included: potato, carrots, onion, celery and parsnip. My father (who got me hooked on this soup as a child) believes that a soup is not a soup unless it always has an onion and some celery in it. I’ve made pumpkin soup without it, so I’m not quite as fussy! But, I always aim to get it into this soup, because it does give the flavour I like.
My father, since I was nine, also used to get me to chop all the veges for our soups on a Sunday afternoon. He taught me about ‘cook’s privilege’, which means you get to sample the food as you go. I didn’t have to tell my son about this concept twice!
Here he is, nicking carrot and celery straight from the pot… Next, all there was to do was to cover it with water, put the lid on and turn it up high.
Usually for slow cooker meals, it’s great to be able to simmer them on low all day, but I find with this soup, I have to crank it up high, or it’ll take forever to boil. Or that could be just my slow cooker, I’m sure different models would vary. We put this soup on a little before lunch….
Dinner time!! It was a meal that my son enjoyed, and not only did he eat all his meat, and everything else, he came back for seconds! He’s so proud that he ‘made it himself’. (My cutting the veges is a mere technicality that we don’t dwell on)
A quick note before I go: my facebook ‘like’ page is down at the moment, it’s a long story… The lovely Violet Le Beaux had the misfortune of having one of her beautiful nail art photos stolen and used by a nail salon’s ‘like’ page at facebook. They cropped off her watermark and plastered their own watermark over it and tried to pass it off as their own work. A number of us reported this copyright breech and made some comments on the ‘like’ page because we were outraged. It turns out that a number of their photos look to be stolen. I made four comments on the ‘like’ page: one in the review section, one as a comment where they displayed her photo, and two on the main wall (I initially only intended one comment, but as an afterthought, went back to post a link to where Violet’s original photo was on her blog). So, for now, my facebook account, including the Hear Mum Roar ‘like’ page, is disabled. I am appealing the decision, and hope to have it back soon.
It is embarassing to have this happen when I have 102 members on the ‘like’ page thus far, and was looking forward to growing that membership, and I do hope it doesn’t reflect badly on me as a blogger. I feel very strongly about copyright breeches, plagiarism, heck, theft of any kind! I hate thieves, especially when they steal from bloggers such as Violet who are brimming with creative energy, raw talent and a strong work ethic. It’s lazy and unprofessional. Prior to this, I had never had any complaints/warnings/reports from anyone for bad behaviour on facebook, so I hope that helps my case somewhat. I’m not saying this from a ‘woe is me’ angle, just a brief explanation for those who were using the page, or about to sign up. I feel it’s a courtesy to you to explain where it is.
I’m sure it will be back very soon, and it’ll be onwards and upwards!
And, on to today. It’s been a busy day here, spent mostly out shopping. But we did manage to have a great time after the kids were showered before bed, playing around with the Useful Box and making cool stuff.
All three kids had a ball hanging out together, rummaging for goods and experimenting with different materials.
Miss 18 months was in her element as she loves just feeling like she’s one of the big kids. She was happy with a magazine, some masking tape and an envelope.
Mr Three was all about the process and not at all about the product. In layman’s terms, this means, he didn’t ‘make’ anything in particular, but thoroughly enjoyed sticking things down, cutting things, and just experimenting and journeying in general. This is a very healthy form of play for a small child, and I feel it’s very important not to pressure a child to make something that ‘looks like’ something. It’s all about the fun!
I like to cut or rip up portions of masking tape or sticky tape for the kids as they work, and stick it to the table’s edge so that they can just get to work on the fun bits. This is mostly for the littlies’ benefit, Miss 9 doesn’t really need it.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Miss 9, who is obsessed with the finished product. But this is natural for her also, because she has more ability to mentally plan what she wants to achieve. It’s a great stage of development, because all sorts of awesome ideas come out, but at the same time, I sometimes have to remind her it’s not about perfection, and that she is doing a great job. Sometimes kids this age get frustrated because something might not turn out exactly as they envisioned it. But hey, life’s like that, huh? And in doing craft, or art too, they learn this lesson. They also learn that sometimes a project can evolve into something not previously imagined as a result.
Here you can see Miss 9′s handmade treasure box. She also has started on a wolf that she wants to keep working on tomorrow. I made the doll in the picture.
It’s been fun doing this series the past couple of days. The Pay It Forward Giveaway still has two spots left. I need to know what to make for whom!
Written on November 9th, 2009 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
If you read yesterday’s post, then you’ll know that today I’ll be showing you how I’ve set up ours.
The first (and obvious) thing you’ll need is a big box for all your goodies. I’ve chosen to re-purpose this old plastic storage container. This box will be tough enough to withstand three very rowdy children roughing it up.
You can use whatever box you’ve got, or like. When my nine-year old daughter was little, because it was only one child using the box (except when my three stepkids came to visit), a cardboard box was fine. We also had a marvellous time decorating it.
Now, you just need to fill ‘er up! What you put into your Useful Box is only limited by your resources and imagination.
Be sure to let your family, friends and neighbours know what you need, so they can help you re-home lots of great pieces! My Gram once put a plastic Oil of Olay powder compact that was empty into my Useful Box, and for a small child it was like winning lotto!
I’ve started a list of materials that can go into a Useful Box. I look forward to reading all your suggestions in the comment section. Let’s see how long we can make this list!
- Cardboard cylinders.(If you are a childcare student looking for ideas on here, please note that many centres and preschools don’t allow toilet rolls. I know the places I worked at didn’t. But in the home, use your own discretion.)
- Plastic bottles, washed and air dried.
- Masking tape and/or sticky tape.
- Pipe cleaners.
- Pegs (I currently am not using spring-loaded pegs, as I have an 18 month-old girl who could choke when Mr 3 decides to pull the spring out in seconds flat. When she’s over three years old, we’ll use them, though). Wooden clothespins are my absolute favourite!
- String, wool or yarn.
- Wrapping paper from old gifts.
- Foil from chocolates, easter eggs, or even good old kitchen foil.
- Ribbons recycled from presents or clothing.
- Plastic lids (again, be careful with the under 3′s and ensure none are small enough to present a choking hazard).
- Any drawing or craft paper.
- Stickers.
- Scraps. These include wool, fabric, cellophane, the possibilities are infinite. Start by giving your craft room a major clean out!
- Cardboard boxes.
- Kitchen utensils such as clean dish brushes, sieves, tongs, spoons, gloves and so on.
- For kids over three, buttons and beads.
- Empty cotton reels.
- Clean shoelaces.
- Paper plates and cups.
- Patty cases for cupcakes.
- Paper bags and envelopes.
- Collage materials. Make some from scraps and cut them into small shapes to be glued. If you have a school aged child or a younger one who can cut with scissors, enlist their help.
Some various odds and sods collected from my studio and around the house. I’ve cut up some wool, fabric and wrapping paper into collage pieces for glueing.
I think the above list should give you a clear idea of a Useful Box’s contents.
If you’ve already gathered some materials together, you’ve probably already realised that if you just throw all this stuff into the box, you’re going to have a big ol’ mess. This would be a huge turn off for kids if they can’t easily access what they’re looking for.
So, for any loose items, I suggest using some clean plastic containers (margarine tubs will do, so will yoghurt cartons with sealable lids. I also like my fish oil containers, they are perfect). This will help you to keep ‘like’ items together and make them quick and easy to find.
Don’t be disheartened if your box looks too empty to begin with. A lot of what you usually throw in your recycling bin will be put into this box in future, and soon your box will be overflowing!
If you’re really in the spirit of things, get the kids to help decorate and label containers.
So, over to you; what else could we put into the Useful Box?
Note: there are still two more spots available in the Pay It Forward Giveaway. Don’t be fooled into thinking you’ve missed out just because there are more than 3 comments! So far, I’ve chosen what to make for the first blogger, Past and present, and am excited to see what It’s a Riley Life has in store for me. No pressure though… lol.
Be sure to pop back to the blog tomorrow, so you can see some Useful Box masterpieces from our place.
Written on November 8th, 2009 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
Do you know what a Useful Box is? If you don’t, you’re in for a treat. A Useful Box is full of items saved for children to make craft or artwork out of. It could contain feathers, clean yoghurt cartons, cardboard cylinders, used gift wrapping paper and any clean, recycled ‘junk’ you may have handy.
If you are an Aussie and have ever watched Playschool, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
I remember vividly as a child, visiting my Gram’s house. She would always tell me to go look under the spare bed in her sunroom, and see what was there. Off I would run in excitement, and with glee I would yell out, ‘it’s a Useful Box!’ Then she would let me sit at the table set up in the sunroom, and I would make all sorts of presents for my beloved Gram. I would while away the hours in my own little world, as the sun twinkled through her old louvred windows, and listen to the songs of the many different birds that lived in her lavish garden outside.
One time I arrived at her house, raced to see what was in the Useful Box this time, and she had popped a gift of toy jewelry just for me! That was the magic of the Useful Box for me; I never knew what surprises I could find in there, or what treasures would be crafted by my own small hands. Most of all though, it was something that made me feel special, that someone had made time to put together a bundle of goodies just for me, and gave me that guarantee that I was going to have a really good time.
Here I am in the 70′s, in a handmade outfit made by my darling Gram.
I also strongly believe that it was this one experience that my Gram (who loved to knit, crochet, sew and create in general) gave me, that laid a strong foundation towards a life-long love of craft. She later went on to teach me to knit and crochet, and would give me helpful advice about sewing when I started learning that at high school.
What a beautiful thing to pass on!
Why have a Useful Box?
- It appeals to a variety of age groups and interests among children – great if you have a toddler, a preschool aged child, and a school aged child as I do. Even better if you have step kids, cousins or friends coming to visit.
- It teaches children to recycle and be resourceful.
- It is cheap enough to almost qualify as being a free activity!
- It encourages constructive play.
- It develops fine motor skills (of the hands) and eye hand coordination.
- It encourages a child to draw, paint, glue, use sticky tape, cut with scissors and therefore refine all of these skills.
- Being such an open-ended activity/resource, it gives the child a sense of autonomy in their play.
- It encourages imaginative play, both during the creative journey and often afterwards, if the child chooses to use their masterpiece as a toy.
My eldest daughter when she was much younger, playing with her own home-made restaurant. I ate lots of playdough pizzas that day! Your kids might enjoy making something similar with their very own Useful Box.
- It provides the child with a language-rich experience. They can talk about the textures of their materials, where they are from and what they are doing with it.
- Enhances cognitive development. When making their own artwork or sculpture, the child gets to experience mental planning, cause and effect and problem solving.
- When more than one child is working from the Useful Box, they can learn important lessons about sharing, taking turns, showing respect for others’ property and trying to do something for themselves.
- It raises a child’s self esteem and gives them a feeling of accomplishment.
- It is a great boredom buster and keeps kids out of mischief!
- It encourages children to give to others. Many arts and crafts from the Useful Box make exquisite gifts for parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. The best gifts are always home-made!
Tomorrow I’ll walk you through setting up your very own Useful Box for either your own children or any very special visitors you may encounter. You’ll see just how easy it is!
Also, please keep in mind, that at the time of posting this, there are still two more spots to be filled on my Pay It Forward Giveaway. So make sure you don’t miss out!
