Parenting Survival Tips

Holiday Traditions

Hi Parents,

Oh - it's hard to believe that it is that time of year again and everyone is racing to the stores to buy the last ninja turtle or barbie cheerleader doll. I don't know about you, but for me, I can't remember what gifts I received for Christmas when I was a kid, but I do remember the amazing holiday traditions that were a huge part of my family life as a kid. I am so thankful to my parents who created and maintained the holiday traditions that I am able to carry on with my children.

Here are just a few Christmas traditions that we embrace in our home and I would love to hear from you if you have holiday traditions that are a part of your family life.

Christmas Holiday Traditions:

1) Homemade GingerBread Houses:

Every year my boys and I start at the beginning of December and we make a huge Gingerbread House every year. We take a large piece of cardboard and cover it with tinfoil and that is our base. Then we use graham crackers for the walls, white frosting in a can for the mortar, and bowls and bowls of colorful candy and cereals as the decorations for the walls. We make marshmellow snowman for the front yard and licorce to pave the driveway. We take our time and do just a few walls a day so it is a project that lasts us the entire month and we put our finishing touches on our house on Christmas Eve. Every year we try to out-do the previous year with our master creations and then we write in marker on the foil the year and take photos so that we can look back on this holiday tradition that will last a lifetime!    

2) Cookie Baking Feast:

Every year we make more than 25 dozen cookies and spend one whole day in a marathon baking feast together making cookies, decorating them and of course eating them! :-) We put a few dozen in the freezer that will last us throughout the year when we have guests over and then we make a list of friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, etc. that we want to share the others with and then we spend a day driving around delivering cookies and wishing our friends "Merry Christmas". My boys love decorating, eating, and delivering the cookies and this is another holiday tradition that they will remember forever.

3) Gift Codes:

Oh - this is one of my most favorite holiday traditions that I really enjoy passing along to my children. Every year I wrap my boys gifts and then I create a different code for each member of the family and write clues to the code on their gifts under the tree. I try to have all of their gifts wrapped and under the tree at least 2 weeks before Christmas so they can spend hours trying to "break the codes" and figure out who's gifts are who's. Here is an example of some of the codes I have done in the past:

• One son's name begins with N so every gift of his had a word written on the paper that begins with an "n" like "nice" and "new" and "noel" and then my other son's name begins with an "L" so all of his gifts had words on it that begin with letter "l".
• My kids are a lot older now so the codes need to be tougher and I have used words from songs that piece together for each person or math problems and one child is all "even" answers and the other child all "odd" answers....
• I am still working on this year's code but I will be sure to post again when I have it created and I look forward to hearing your code ideas! :-)

4) Pine Needle Pick-up:

Every year we have fun picking out a "real" tree and every year our floor is covered with pineneedles and instead of spending hours every day vaccuuming, I have a tradition of incenting my children to help pick up the pine needles. I give them a cup with their name on it and they get $.01 for every needle they pick up - oh - this is hours of keeping them entertained while I work on other projects during this busy time of year and they are happy to have $5-$10 extra to spend after the holidays.

I am blessed to be able to pass these holiday traditions on to my children that will last them a lifetime and I look forward to hearing your family hilday traditions.

Julie
aka: Happy Mom

Menu-Math

Hi Parents,

It's summertime and it can be difficult to keep your children brushed up on their math skills to be ready for the next school year. Here is one of our favorite activities to have fun refreshing their math skills without them even knowing it! :-)

Menu-Math

Let the children know they are going to run a restaurant for the day. First, give each child a piece of blank paper and ask them to create a menu for their restaurant by writing down a list of food items they want to serve in their restaurant.

Then, next to each food item ask them to write the price and be sure to encourage them to use dollars and cents. To make the activity even more interesting ask them to draw pictures on their menu of the food items or if they are younger kids let them cut the food pictures out of a magazine or take labels off of some of the food boxes/cans in your kitchen.

Set the ambiance with tables, plates, cups, etc. Let the kids take turns playing the host/hostess to seat the customers and to pass out the menus. Then ask the waiter to take their order and write it down and then serve the food when it is ready. You can use real food if it is meal time or plastic food or paper pretend food. Make sure the waiter takes good care of the customers and brings them the bill when they are done eating. Of course you will want to give the customer some monopoly or pretend money to leave a tip and explain to them how to calculate the tip (typical 10%-15%) and let them try to figure out the amount to leave on their own.

Finally the customer(s) go to the cashier to pay their bill. Let the cashier make the correct change and ask the customer to verify it is the correct amount. If you don't have a toy cash register then you can use a shoe box or some other creative cash box solution.

Let the kids take turns playing the different roles and you will be surprised that after playing the menu math game a few times how well their math and change counting skills will improve (hopefully their manners, writing, and service skills as well!).

I would love to hear from you if you have other fun math building activities that you play in your home!

Bon Appetit!

Julie
aka: Mom