Princess and the Frog

Today, we went to see Princess and the Frog at a local theater. We had a few theater glitches, but enjoyed the movie. You can read about our trip & thoughts on the movie in this post on my other blog.

Watching Football - Keeping preschooler entertained

With the conference finals this weekend and the Super Bowl next weekend, it will be a challenge to keep my preschooler entertained during the games. As a football fan, I have lots of experience entertaining my daughter. First, I will often invite my parents over for the game so I have reinforcements.

I am also lucky to have a preschooler who still naps, so a well timed nap helped today. However, she has now woken up and is requesting a movie. I will admit to having used a portable DVD player when she was younger to let her watch a movie during key games when my team was involved.

I prefer to watch games in our basement with the 50" HDTV. The TV/seating area is generally a no toy zone, but I make an exception during games so that I don't have to go to the basement toy area where it is harder to see the TV. I do limit noisy toys and those that have the potential to hit the television & glass cabinets. She was quite disappointed that I wouldn't let her play Gator Golf today.

I have some sport stickers and stamps that I can get out so she can do a craft project. Before the Super Bowl, I may try to come up with a craft or activity during the game.

So, how do you entertain your child while you watch the games?

Searching for a preschool? Read about my experiences.

Believe it or not, now is the time to start considering pre-schools for the 2010-2011 school year. It is important to start looking now to know what your options are and to have the most options available to you. You can find a list of open houses on our website. Last year, I started looking at pre-schools for my daughter in March. At that point, some of my options were limited (class choice, days, location). However, I think that we ended up with the perfect fit for us.

There are many considerations when looking at a pre-school. The structure of pre-school, curriculum, facilities, class days and times, etc. I wanted to provide some insight into our search from last year. Not to say that what was important to me will be important to you, but to give those who are just starting out some things to think about. (read more)

Wintry Playgrounds are still fun - link

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about wintry playgrounds for my local blog. I thought I would share it here, since it is of general interest to those who live in areas that see wintry weather.

Family Game Night - Preschool Style

I have often seen the idea of a family game night pushed by the game manufacturers. Well, many of the games they suggest are for older children and hard to implement when your child is only 4. However, my daughter received the kids versions of a few classic games for Christmas so we opted to play those. We played Monopoly Town and Clue Carnival Caper, both of which are good for my 4 year old in difficulty and game length.

In Monopoly Town, Mr. Monopoly sits in his car and gives you instructions. As you land on properties you can add a level to them up to the specified level. If you complete the building, you put your color roof on it and can collect rent from then on. The goal is to use your 5 roofs first and place your golden roof on top to win the game. There is no reading involved, but lots of counting.

Clue Carnival Caper plays a little different than the adult version of Clue. First, the mystery is around missing carnival prizes, not a murder. Instead of dealing cards to the players, they are placed in various carnival locations and you can see cards as you visit the locations. There are two versions of the game - an easy version where you determine the thief and the time of the crime and a harder version where you determine the thief, the time of the crime, and the scene of the crime. You play 5 rounds which generally allows you to see 5 of the 6 sets of cards placed around the board. After each round, every player takes a guess to the thief, time, and scene (in the harder version only). After the last round, you see who did it and the player with the most correct guesses wins. My daughter still needs an adult partner to play this game with her. Also, we try not to look at what other players are guessing since that could give additional insight into the answers, but is beyond a 4 year olds powers of deduction.

Family Game Night was a nice change from our typical nightly TV viewing. I will admit that my daughter asked for an episode of Scooby Doo while she had her bedtime snack, but we held firm that the games were in place of TV and she finished her snack in 10 minutes instead of 25.

She has other games, but my husband just doesn't get into playing the Princess or Tinker Bell games. For active games, my daughter loves Hullaballoo, and just got Hyper Dash that we can all play. She has Scrabble, Jr, but it is still a little hard for her since she does not read. She also has the childhood classics of Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-o, Cootie, and Don't Break the Ice. They just feel more like us playing a game with her as opposed to all of us playing together.

I would definitely like to make a night like tonight a regular occurrence in our house.

"Christmas" Birthday Party

My daughter wanted a Christmas themed party for her 4th birthday. Since her birthday is the first week of January, we agreed, but focused it more on winter than Christmas. One benefit to the theme was that I did not have to get the Christmas decorations put away before her party.

The kids had a snowball fight. While we live in Michigan, there was not snow the day of her party. We spread tissue paper sheets out around the basement and let the kids crumple them up and throw them around. They had a blast. When they were done, I bagged the paper to reuse in wrapping my Christmas decorations. The following week when I took down the Christmas tree, I found a "snowball" hidden among the branches. I cannot take credit for this activity. We did it last year at a friend's birthday party.

I asked my daughter what games she wanted to play and she asked to play "Pin the Carrot Nose on the Snowman". I made a snowman out of a sheet of white poster with some black and orange construction paper. To make the snowman, I found three bowls/pans of varying sizes in my kitchen that could be laid out on the poster and cut out the three circles which I glued together as a snowman. I used black construction paper to make a hat and cut small black circles for the eyes, to make a mouth, and as buttons. I did not make these perfect circles so that they looked like lumps of coal. I made a bow with red construction paper. I cut two carrots for each child out of orange construction paper.

We played Snowman, Snowman, Penguin, a variation on Duck, Duck, Goose. The children sit in a circle and one child who is "it" goes around patting them on the head saying Snowman and eventually says Penguin. The child who is tapped as Penguin has to chase the child who was it as they run around the circle and sit back down in the penguin's seat. The penguin is then it.

I stocked up on party supplies at the post Christmas sales. At Michael's I bought a large package of foam stickers for $2.40. The package had trees, snowflakes, penguins, and snowballs. For each child, I cut a sheet of white construction paper into rolling hills and glued it at the bottom of a blue sheet of construction paper. The kids loved making their crafts and were creative in making their designs. The only down side of this was that Michael's had their sticker bin outside and it was 12 degrees the night I was there.

Finally, at Target I bought penguin melamine plates and shaky cups for each child. I found them on clearance after Christmas. The kids used them cups and plates for lunch and then I cleaned them and gave them to them as their party favors.

All of the kids seemed to have a great time. They did not want to leave, staying well beyond the time planned for the party. I think some if it had to do with having not seen each other over the holiday break.