Helpful Parenting Resources
Looking for helpful parenting tips for different ages and stages of your child’s growth?
All posts filed under: Kid Stuff
Toddlers and Self-Isolation – Ideas for small hands
Are you stuck at home with a toddler? We have plenty of experience hanging with these small people – here are some scheduling and art suggestions for trying to maintain your sanity. Babies and toddlers like routine, their world is so unpredictable so providing them with some sort of routine helps them to know what is coming next. If you’ve got a babe between the ages of 18+ months to 3 years try out our daycare schedule for them. 8:30-9:30 free play Clean up 9:45am circle time – we’re hosting a FREE circle time on Tuesday/Friday if you want to join – send us an email! 10am – snack 10:30 – outdoor play 11:30 – lunch 12-2:30 nap time 3-4pm outdoor play 4pm snack time 4:30pm art 5-5:30 free play. Art Ideas A list of materials needed (all can be purchased at your local dollar store, which is currently still open). Paper Markers Watercolour Paint Gluestick Salad Spinner Shaving Cream Food colouring Qtips Paint Bingo Dabber Letter Art: Toddlers love repetition – we start the …
Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
The tiny tots whipped these chewy, chocolate chip, oatmeal cookies in about 20 minutes. Baking with kids is a great way for them to learn about counting and numbers. To avoid big messes we have them sit at the table in their booster seats and bring all the ingredients to the table. Then they each get a turn and thus we are also working on our waiting our turn. All great skills for the tots to learn about. I got the recipe from here, I have also pasted it below. We added 3/4 cup of raisins too! Happy baking! Ingredients: 1/2C unsalted butter, softened 1/2C granulated sugar 1/2C light brown sugar 1 large egg 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp cinnamon 3/4C all purpose flour 1 1/2C old fashioned oats 3/4C chocolate chips, plus extra for topping Directions: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a cookie sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together …
DIY Easter Craft!
We hosted a bunny hop this past Sunday and it was so much fun! The kids loved the Easter Egg Hunt the best, surprise, surprise! The craft and cookie decorating were definitely enjoyed too. The kids made these adorable little dioramas. For time purposes we painted the boxes blue beforehand and then the kids got to decorate it however they wanted. This is a great little craft to do with various ages and a perfect little hostessing gift if you’re going somewhere for Easter dinner this weekend. Almost all of the materials were purchased from the dollar store. All you need is: Brown Box Blue paint Glue Cotton Balls Small little yellow ducks/sparkly eggs Pipe Cleaners Easter Grass
How to Host the Perfect Fairy Party!
Is your little one obsessed with fairies? We recently hosted a birthday party for a little girl who picked fairies as her theme. We had so much fun creating her birthday and think it would be an easy party for anyone to recreate in your home. For the decorations we bought strands of fake flowers from the dollar store. We also printed out a little saying we came across, which matched our theme perfectly. All you need is Faith, Trust and a little Fairy Dust! Loot Bags: For the loot bags we made little jars of fairy dust. We bought mini glass jars from the dollar store and covered them in clear tape just to be extra cautious. We filled each jar with water a few drops of glycerin and lots of sparkles. We then hot glued the cork back into the jar to prevent spilling. We tied a purple ribbon around the jar so that it could be worn as a necklace. We also made fairy cookies, the sky is the limit on how …
Valentines Day Crafts
We’re prepping for a few events where we’ll be sharing some valentines day crafts, so thought we would share them here too! They’re not only easy but also very budget friendly! All supplies we’re purchased at the dollar store (minus the cardboard, which was rescued from our recycling bin). Valentines Day Wreath Materials Mason Jar Lid Various Heart Decorations Twine Red Ribbon Hot Glue Directions Wrap the twine around the Mason Jar lid, very tightly and hot glue both the starting point and the end point. Use whatever heart decorations you like and tie a ribbon at the top. Although this is so perfect for Valentines Day you could definitely use it as a Holiday Ornament too! Valentines Day Love Sign Materials Needle and red yarn Square of burlap red ribbon or rope Felt Scissors Hot Glue Directions You can get as creative as you like with your little burlap square. We kept it simple but would encourage those creativity juices to flow! We simply cut a heart out of felt and hot …
DIY Under the Sea Birthday
This past weekend we hosted a wonderful birthday for a little girl who turned 8 years old. She requested “under the sea” as her theme and we had so much fun with it! The guests made “Under the Sea” treasure boxes and decorated cupcakes with fondant dolphins and seashells. For the decorations, we made lots of beautiful fish and used tissue paper for seaweed. The hanging Jelly Fish were made from a paper bowl and a cut up table cloth. If you want to skip all the work you can always contact us to host your Under The Sea Birthday Party – visit our Birthday page for more information!
Happy Halloween!
Everyone seems to love Halloween, from little children to big grown-ups. This past Sunday we had our annual Haunted House and it was a hit! We tried to serve as many healthy snacks as we could, which included Clementine Jack-O-Lanterns and bran muffin cupcakes. We were left with only crumbs at the end, so I’m guessing our Halloween Sweet Table was a hit! Here are some pics from the big day! We’ve really enjoyed getting into the Halloween spirit this year, we’re particularly excited about going trick or treating for the first time!! My little one is dressing up as a monster (or a shark, we’re still undecided) and will be walking the Halloween streets for the first time! I’m slightly nervous about the temper tantrums that may ensue regarding the eating of candy, but I’m bracing myself for them. Happy Halloween everyone, wishing you a safe and fun evening!
Halloween Treats
Our Annual Haunted House is just around the corner and we’re getting ready by making all our own treats for the event. We are trying to stay on the healthier side of things but it’s not so easy at Halloween. We made organic gingerbread dough for our Skeletons and used a very small amount of brown sugar in the recipe. I did find a recipe after the fact that had no sugar in it, so if anyone has a chance to try it please let me know! For the Ghost Pops you could definitely use sugar free Lollipops. We’re also going be decorating bran muffins to look like yummy cupcakes! One of our healthier snacks will be the return of Clementine Jack-O-Lanterns. A quick and easy DIY project to help decorate your treat table are Mason Jar Mummies. This took me all of ten minutes and most of that time was waiting for the glue gun to get hot enough. I simply wrapped the jar in gauze (which I purchased from the dollar store) and …
Kleenex Box Monsters
This is an easy DIY craft for you to do with your kiddies! There’s so many great things about this craft, not only is it made using recycled parts it can also be used for fun games after, like skeleton toss or really just about any kind of “toss” you want. Supplies Kleenex box (with plastic sleeve intact) Paint (your choice of colours) Construction Paper White Paper Scissors Egg carton (you just need 2 dimples from the carton) Hot glue Googly Eyes Directions Paint the Kleenex box and 2 sections of the egg carton, let stand to dry. Cut circles (or shape of your choice) out of construction paper. Once paint is dry glue your eyes and shapes on, using hot glue. You can also glue the googly eyes onto the egg carton at this point. Cut teeth out of the white paper and glue to plastic sleeve on Kleenex box.