Unclutter your kid’s art: Turn it into a masterpiece!

If you’re new ’round these parts, you might not know: Peeper loves art. She loves to paint. She loves to color. She loves to glue. She loves to squish her hands into finger paints and give herself a standing ovation, splattering red and blue all over the walls.

(Ok, that last one is more performance art, but still.)

All those days of keeping busy with kid crafts leads to a lot of saved projects. At one point, the kitchen counter, the wine rack, my work desk, the fridge and the dining room table were all buried under my preschooler’s crafts.

I knew something had to change. I had to unclutter my kid’s art.

Unclutter your kid's art by turning it into a masterpiece! Ten Thousand Hour Mama Read more

Today I say no to mommy guilt

The internet is filled with blog posts just dripping with mommy guilt. These posts are about how a mom lost her temper, yelled or lost her patience or cried or otherwise acted imperfectly, then tearfully apologized to her kids. These posts are about moms trying to forgive themselves.

This is not one of those posts.

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A fashionably fierce sweater craft

Kids sweater craft: Princess and the Pony

Princesses are everywhere these days.

Disney has overrun the toy aisle, Pandora stations and the playground.

Now, I’m not a hater: I adore certain Disney movies, and Peeper’s first movie was Cinderella. But I can’t help but notice that a lot of princesses are, well, passive.

That is not the case with Princess Pinecone, the titular royalty in the picture book The Princess and the Pony.

A princess book with sass

Princess Pinecone lives in a society of warriors. But her parents haven’t quite caught on: They give her cutesy sweaters instead of cool warrior presents like shields, spiked belts or—what she truly covets—a fierce warrior horse.

When her birthday rolls around, she does get a horse—sort of. Princess Pinecone gets big-eyed, doughy pony who farts too much.

But she can’t give a birthday present back, she figures, so she keeps the pony. What happens at the next warrior brawl surprises everyone.

Getting crafty

After reading The Princess and the Pony about a hundred times, I made a book-inspired craft for Peeper. And I’m not the only one: Check out the brute-inspired crafts at the Raising Fairies and Knights Monthly Crafting Book Club!

Monthly Crafting Book Club

Princess Pinecone and the rest of the brutes in the book come to realize that cute can be strong, and you don’t have to be just fierce or just adorable—you can be both.

So Peeper and I created a fashionably fierce sweater craft.

This sweater craft is great for fine motor skills—though if your little is as young as Peeper is, she may need a little help winding the yarn around the paper.

Princess sweater craft

It’s also very open-ended. There’s no “right” way for the sweater craft to look: The process of winding and stamping (and hand-slapping, if you’re Peeper) is much more important than the final product.

After all, process art helps young kids feel more confident, since they don’t “fail” to make their project look identical to the model one, writes the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

So hit up your library for a copy of The Princess and the Pony, then join us for some cozy—and fierce—fun.

Kids sweater craft Princess and the PonyKids sweater craft Princess and the Pony

Fashionably fierce sweater craft

Supplies

  • cardstock paper
  • yarn
  • painter’s tape
  • paint
  • cotton balls

Instructions

  1. Cut out a sweater shape from a sheet of cardstock.
  2. Tape one end of the yarn to the “back” of the sweater. Then have your child wind the yarn around the sweater. (You may have to help by guiding her hands or playing out the yarn.)
  3. When your child is done wrapping, tape the tail of the yarn to the back of the sweater. This will secure the yarn so it doesn’t move.
  4. Squirt out as many colors of paint as your child would like. Invite her to stamp the paper with a cotton ball (it’s so cozy, like a sweater!). The more she paints over the yarn and fills up the white space, the more contrast she’ll get.
  5. When she’s done, untape and unwrap the yarn. She’ll see the white lines left by the yarn—giving her a striped sweater!

Don’t forget to try out the other The Princess and the Pony crafts at the Monthly Crafting Book Club!

Princess and the Pony monthly crafting book club

DIY colorful tomato cages

60-second DIY tomato cages - Ten Thousand Hour Mama

Peeper, in all her almost-three-year-old wisdom, has become quite the picky discerning eater. Tool around the internet searching “picky eater” and you’ll find about a billion recommendations to miraculously make your preschooler ask for seconds of that spinach-quinoa-frittata you whipped up. The tip that has made a lot of sense to me, though, is having your kid help grow the food you want her to eat.

Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a black thumb. I have somehow managed to kill a half-dozen cacti and succulents in the last year, not to mention the less hardy plants that have perished on my watch.

But I refuse to give up—especially if persistence means fewer power struggles around the dinner table. So this spring and summer we are growing some edible plants in planters.

First up on Peeper’s homegrown menu: tomatoes!

 DIY colorful tomato cages

Getting her hands dirty

Peeper was so excited to plant the tomato starter. She’s been checking on it daily as the poor plant languished in its tiny pot for weeks. (See my earlier note about killing plants. Oops!)

We couldn’t find the trowel in the rat’s nest of our garage, so Peeper helped scoop potting soil with a little Mason jar.

DIY colored tomato cages

What kids learn from growing food

I’m most excited about the (theoretical) expansion of Peeper’s menu, but there are other benefits to helping kids grow food.

Planting a seed, tending to it and watching it grow is a tangible lesson in where food comes from. Hands-on gardening teaches kids about the life cycle and the effect of the environment (like what happens to a plant after a rain storm or a scorcher).

Growing food also teaches kids about how a plant grows. Peeper got up close and personal with the tomato plant’s roots as we loosened the packed dirt around the root ball.

Planting tomatoes and DIY tomato cages

Kids also learn ownership and responsibility. Peeper has asked to water the plants we repotted and loves to check their progress. The patience she’ll gain, too, as she waits for a tiny green tomato to turn into a beefsteak is a bonus for any preschooler.

Making a pretty tomato cage

Once we repotted the tomato, we had to stake in the tomato cage. We explained to Peeper that tomato plants grow big and heavy, and the cage helps support it.

When I’d gone to the hardware store to buy the cages, I wanted to get the beautiful, brightly colored ones—but couldn’t justify paying three times more for a pink or green one.  Instead, I bought the regular silver tomato cage—and gave it a 60-second facelift!

Spray painting DIY tomato cages - Ten Thousand Hour Mama

DIY colorful tomato cages

Using stuff you probably already have in your garage, you can make a tomato cage even prettier—in about a minute!

60-second DIY Colorful Tomato Cages

Supplies

  • a metal tomato cage (mine cost less than $3 at the hardware store)
  • cardboard or newspaper
  • spray paint (I used a can that was lying around from a previous project, so it was free!)

Directions

  1. Lay out your cardboard or newspaper on a flat surface. Make sure it’s bigger than the tomato cage so you don’t spray paint the ground.
  2. Set the tomato cage on top in a way it won’t move around.
  3. Following the directions on the spray paint can, spray a layer of color on the tomato cage.
  4. Wait until the layer of paint is dry, then turn the tomato cage over. Spray paint that side.
  5. Wait for the paint to dry fully, then stick the tomato cage in the ground. It’s ready to support those tomatoes in style!

What my love is worth

preschooler love bed snugglesThe other morning I was sitting on the floor, playing with Kiwi. I snuggled in close to her, ruffling her downy hair with my nose.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Then I looked up at Peeper, who was drinking milk at the table.

“Psst,” I started. She looked at me. “I love you.”

Peeper set her glass down.

Now can I have a popsicle?”

And that’s how I know the value of my love: It is preschooler leverage to get dessert.

5 Little Monkeys craft {with download!}

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“For the love of all things holy I am not reading this book one more time!”

5 Little Monkeys craft process art downloadI have a love/hate relationship with the book 5 Little Monkeys. After about the sixth time of reading it, all that repetition makes me want to jump off a bed and knock myself in the head.

But the repetition is great for pre-readers: Books that have repeating sequences, like 5 Little Monkeys, strengthens a child’s neural pathways and primes them for learning to read later. For example, all that repetition helps kids add to their vocabulary faster, reports research from the University of Sussex in the UK. And the familiar rhythms of a repetitive book helps that child remember what comes next—a skill that later helps them predict or hypothesize what comes next.

I saw this all in action with Peeper and 5 Little Monkeys. I used to pass the book back to her while we were driving around. After a while, she would “read” the book to herself—including counting down the number of monkeys.

All that repetition really worked!

Turns out the repetitive motion of painting is a great parallel for this story. When I found Raising Fairies and Knights’s Monthly Crafting Book Club, I was in: I wanted to make a fun art project that went along with 5 Little Monkeys, too!

You may also know what a proponent of process art I am. So I didn’t want to create a craft that had a clear expectation of how the craft should look in the end. Instead, I created a project that let Peeper do her own thang while staying true to the spirit of the book. And with my hand-drawn download, you can, too!

5 Little Monkeys craft process art download 5 Little Monkeys craft download Read more

Get your picky eater to try kale

In certain circles (*cough, cough* Portlandia), kale is shorthand for all things healthy. Want to make a smoothie? Kale’s in, spinach is out. Whipping up a frittata? Make sure those eggs come from organic-free-range-vegetarian-fed-deliriously-happy hens, and throw in some kale, too, obvi. Making a salad? Forget the romaine; you need to massage some kale instead.

But if your kid is anything like my picky preschooler, kale is not on the menu.

Until now.

(Sort of.)

picky eater kaleHow my kid started to eat kale

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Feathered friends: 5 ways for kids to help birds

Peeper loves her some animals, and birds are no exception. I once called a bird that landed on the telephone wire a blue jay; she corrected me: “No, Mama, that’s a stellar jay.” (#schooledbyatoddler)

In a book she adores that has photos of pretty much every animal on the planet, she points to the birds with silly names and giggles uncontrollably as I recite them: plain chachalaca, hoopoe and the blue-crowned motmot.

And she has loved some of our recent projects to help our neighborhood’s resident birds.

ways for kids to help birdsWe were inspired to learn how kids can help birds by a recent suggested service project from Giving Families, a monthly mail subscription that sends kids ideas to help others. It included instructions on how to help birds build nests, making a cozy home for all those chirping chicks that will be hatching this spring.

Peeper didn’t want to stop there. If your kids want to help birds, too, here are a few super-easy, way quick ideas to support our feathered friends. Read more

Our favorite children’s books: Books to say “no” to

Pretty much the day Peeper turned two, she rediscovered the word “no”—and all its power (to refuse, to state her opinion, to frustrate her parents…). Nowadays, one of her most used responses is the “no-yes,” an expression unique to toddlers who simultaneously refuse and demand things like popsicles and bunny crackers.

It makes sense, then, that Peeper delights in books that give voice to this milestone. Here, then, are some titles your little one can say “no” to again and again.

Favorite Children's Books to Say No To

 

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2 3/4 years old: All the feelings

Peeper is two and three-quarters years old, but she is more emotionally mature than many adults I know. (Sorry, guys!)

Take, for example, the other day when I spilled something in the kitchen while Peeper was eating breakfast. I must have made some grumpy grunt, because she asked what was wrong. “I’m just frustrated,” I replied.

She slid off her booster seat and walked over to me. She wrapped her arms around my legs and planted a yogurt-covered kiss on my knee.

“It’s ok that you’re frustrated, Mommy,” she said. “Now do you feel better?”

How could I not? trampoline jump girltutu and hat preschoolerblow bubbles Read more