Silhouette Christmas Ornaments

While the children will be making various handprint and crafty items this week before Christmas, I wanted to do something for the parents that would be a lasting memento. 

Silhouettes are back in fashion, and I thought that would be a great idea to start with.

For the process:

I already had a pack of Shrinky Dink film. 

I took profile pics of the kiddos.

Knowing that my film is 8 1/2 X 11 inches, I manipulated the pics in my word processing drawing feature to comfortably fit within a 1/4 page space with enough extra for the hole at the top and the frame at the bottom.

I printed out the pics, placed them under the Shrinky Dink film, and outlined with a black Sharpie marker. [Don't scrimp and use a low-end marker.] I then removed the film from atop the photo on to a piece of plain white paper.

I took an oval piece from one of the children's shape matching games and used it as a template at the bottom to make a frame for their name and the year. I free handed the inside line about 1/4 inch.

I wrote their name and the year into the frame. I liked the satin look for the front of the ornament. If you want the shiny look for the front, I would print out the name and year in mirror and copy onto the ornament. 

I colored in the profile outline and the frame with a broad tip permanent marker going in one direction. If you go back and forth then it will start pulling the ink and make a gummy mess. Make a clean, slightly overlapping line and leave it to dry.

Once the first layer is dry, do a second layer of black permanent marker in the opposite direction. It will give a linen-like look to the finished piece. 

If necessary, let dry and do a third coat. Just because it shrinks down dramatically, doesn't mean that any missed or thin ink spots won't show. Get a good coverage before shrinking.

Use a standard hole punch to punch a string/hanger hole at the top of the film.

Bake at 325 degrees. I won't give a time, just to say it takes a couple of minutes. You need to watch them carefully and once they are FULLY flat, count 30 seconds and remove to cool. I was fearful the entire time watching them as they curl and bubble up and look like a freakish mess and that there is no way possible that they could end up flat and looking decent. They do! Just let them do their thing.

Once thoroughly cooled, I sprayed the inked side with a satin enamel. You could also use Modge Podge or another sealer, but I wanted something I could spray so that it wouldn't possibly mess up the pic with brushing something on.

I had some cording that fit perfectly through the hole. 

They turn out relatively small. The shrinkage rate on my Shrinky Dink paper is suppose to be 50%, but they seem really small for a 1/4 sheet. They went from 4 1/4 X 5 1/2 to 1 5/8 X 2 inches.

I really like them. I hope the parents do, too.

cd3b5a1cfca0f056eb22a99c7b76c7bf2fd26004c317632a6f

Cheese Steaks for Children

I had a French bread loaf and decided to use it for cheese steak sandwiches. Cheese steaks for preschoolers? Heck yeah!

I made them open faced for easier/neater handling by scooping out the middles of the bread slices.

I diced red, yellow and orange peppers and sauteed them in olive oil until caramelized.

The meat was about 4 lbs. of steaks cooked in the crockpot on low overnight with two cans French onion soup and water to cover. I froze half for another day.

I put the peppers and meat together and lightly diced it all with my chopper.

After putting the meat mixture into the center hollow of the bread slices, I topped with a 5 cheese Italian blend and broiled until melted and just browning.

This was a new recipe, so I wasn't sure how it would go over. Two of the little ones didn't eat much of it, but they ate more than I thought they might, being my pickier eaters. The others finished off 2-3 half slices each and gave them an excellent rating.

With the meat already cooked, this is a quick meal to put together, and with the abundance of peppers, rich in nutrition.

Why NO JUICE

There are many health reasons why children should not be drinking juice. Children should be drinking milk with meals and water at all other times. We tend to place our taste preferences for juice or soda/pop onto our children, when they are quite content to drink water. Children learn to like the foods and drinks that they are consistently given by their caregivers. 

There are several issues to consider when you provide your child juice:

• It helps create an addiction to sugar
• It is a known cause of obesity and failure to thrive
• A child under 5 does not have the gastric maturity to adequately handle the concentrated acids
• It produces a glucose imbalance that can cause health issues
• It can increase yeast production leading to ear infections and other illness
• It creates a "sugar high" so that when the child crashes, they feel a need for more juice/sugar
• It has little nutritional value unless fresh squeezed
• It can fill up the child, replacing nutritional food
• It erodes tooth enamel and can lead to cavities and tooth loss
• Most juice contains pesticide residue that can accumulate within the child and cause harm
• Citric juices are so caustic they use them as paint remover, most doctors did not even discuss citric juices in my research, assuming parents would not be giving them to young children

While NO JUICE is recommended, if you are going to give a child juice, it should be given after age 3, preferably age 4, since that is when a child’s digestive system is mature enough to completely handle the concentrated acids and excessive sugars juices contain. 

Dr. Tobias Nobrigot:

"Previous studies suggest that the less complete absorption of the carbohydrates in apple and pear juice is commonly attributed to two factors: the imbalance of fructose and glucose—in both apple and pear juice that ratio is approximately two to one—and the presence of sorbitol. White and purple grape contain no sorbitol and the fructose/glucose ratio in each juice is approximately one to one. This study indicates, among other things, that young children gradually develop an ability to absorb the sugars in apple and pear juice. The three year old group handled apple juice nicely but was still digesting the pear juice incompletely. By five, all four juices were being digested properly." 

Fruit juice contains four forms of carbohydrates: sorbitol, fructose, glucose, and sucrose. Not only is sorbitol hard for some children to digest, but juices with a high ratio of fructose to glucose have also been shown to be rough on young gastric systems. Apple and pear juice, in particular, are both high in sorbitol and have a fructose-glucose imbalance.

Fruit juice, which is consumed heavily by children, is not a whole food and adds little nutritional value. Juicing removes the fiber, and unless the juice is freshly squeezed and consumed immediately, most of the nutrients are lost. Commercial canned or bottled juices are mostly sugar (even if you buy unsweetened) and most likely contain pesticides. Excess sugar can make your child more susceptible to illness.

Excess sugar also means that the body is in a state of unbalance blood sugar levels due to the lack of complex carbohydrates. Once the blood sugar level peaks and falls, then children are back asking for more juice, and if given, will keep perpetuating this unhealthy cycle. One of the reasons Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in children.

Doctors say that juice is just as bad as soda.

Researchers say that when a baby's bottle or cup is filled with juice — even the 100 percent, all-natural, no-sugar-added stuff — parents might as well be pouring Pepsi.

A growing body of science is linking sweet drinks, natural or otherwise, to a host of child health concerns, everything from bulging bellies to tooth decay.

Drinking large amounts of juice can also decrease the appetite. If a child drinks a lot of juice, they may not have an appetite for the food they really need.

A child who drinks a lot of fruit juices may be susceptible to yeast overgrowth, as with any high sugar intake. This can lead to chronic nasal congestion, eczema, or throat and ear infections.

Fruit juice consumption by infants and young children has increased over the past 30 to 40 years because of increased availability, convenience, marketing and children’s preferences. Sweetened beverages are preferred over unsweetened drinks even by neonates, as well as young children. By one year of age almost all children drink fruit juice. Concerns about children’s excessive consumption of fruit juice have been raised by a number of professional groups. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Periodontics have expressed concerns about tooth decay and fruit juice. The AAP Committee on Nutrition has expressed concern about sorbitol, a naturally occurring, but nonabsorbable sugar alcohol present primarily in pear juice and apple juice; they cautioned that the "excessive use of fruit juice" may result in gastrointestinal symptoms, such as chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain or bloating . The role of juice carbohydrate malabsorption (especially fructose) in chronic nonspecific diarrhea in children has been recognized for some time.

Among children referred for evaluation of failure to thrive, excessive fruit juice consumption was reported as a contributing factor in nonorganic failure to thrive in eight children, aged 14 to 27 months. In some children, an association between excessive fruit juice consumption and short stature was reported, while in other children, a relationship between high intakes of fruit juice and obesity was found.

The concentrated acids in fruit juice also eat away at the enamel of young teeth, cause significant tooth decay. If giving juice, it must not be in a bottle and should be chased by water.

If your children are drinking fruit juice, you can wean them by diluting one-third white grape juice with two-thirds water. You can slowly cut the juice out altogether. Pure water is the best drink for children.

Another issue regarding juice is the presence of pesticide residue toxins. The USDA pesticide data program has identified carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, developmental/reproductive toxins and bee toxins in juice. Here are links to see what is in the most commonly given juices to children: Apple juice, orange juice.
There is no nutritional or health reason to provide juice to children. Children learn to like what they are served. That should be milk and WATER. Juice is not helpful to a child's body, it is actually harmful and something that taxes the body to handle.

Teaching Twos - Science

Please remember that this is child-led learning through play and movement. No drills, worksheets, etc. I'm going to present them in a series of subjects:

• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Social/Community
• Gross Motor
• Fine Motor
• Art

SCIENCE

I feel like much of childhood is living in the scientific method: systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation; and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

They observe, they test, they assess, they try something else, and keep evolving their beliefs through data collection and analysis.

Basically, childhood IS living science.

Just as all children are born artists, they are also all born scientists. We do them a grave disservice when we limit their ability to observe and experiment.

What do two year olds learn about science?

Physics
One of the first concepts is gravity. They drop items simply to see them fall. They quickly learn through throwing things up in the air that what goes up will come down.

Force and resistance are learned as they fall, bump into things, and throw things. Even something as low-key as a bead chase teaches gravity, force and motion.

Playing with inclined planes, changing the angles, changing the items rolled down, all work on force, motion and resistance concepts.

As they mature in this concept, they begin to manipulate force and resistance, and to play with forces. They learn if they use more force, they gain more distance. If they use more force, they dig up more sand. If I use more force, they go higher in the swing. If they use more force when pushing their friend, it leads to problems. We explore force and motion a lot with our pulleys and pendulums play. The twos love them.

It always fascinates me when they come up with something like this, where the two's started playing with centrifugal force with the large bowls. They even taught a 4 year old something new. Exploring science concepts within play is natural. They got them moving, then they started adding in other bowls, balls, and items to see how it worked. Many small figures went flying across the room, which they thought was a total hoot.

Chemistry
Yes, art teaches chemistry. Color mixing, making play dough, exploring the viscosity of shaving cream, adding herbs into play dough thus changing the feel and smell, is all chemistry related.

Helping to make food teaches a lot of chemistry.

Yeah. This.

States of matter. Dirt going to mud. Solid to liquid. The boys really understand this one.

Bubbles popping and disappearing really works on manipulation of all three states of matter. Learning through play.

Probably discussing and helping with food making is the best introduction to this concept. Observing how cheese melts and becomes gooey, playing in the sensory bin with ice and water, discussing the steam rising on the pasta pot. It's not a set concept at all, but just an introduction through observations that will make sense later.

They are also naturals at experimenting with solutions and mixtures, and exploring viscosity, and our outdoor environment is well suited to that.

Meteorology
Since we are outside a LOT, and we garden, the weather isn't just a circle time blip here. We discuss the weather daily in relation to its importance to US. It's sunny again today, so the ground is too dry, so we need to water the plants. It's cold out, so we need to wear our jackets. It rained, so we need to wear our boots. The clouds are dark and cover the sky, so it looks like it might rain. The frost on the ground means the end to our tomatoes. Watching the wind blowing the leaves off the trees and feeling it against their bodies is a physical and visceral immersion into weather.

Biology & ecology
We discuss how our animals need food, water, and shelter just like us. The children here are never allowed to chase any animal. The wild bunnies and squirrels will often come fairly close for observation. The kitty patiently teaches the two's how to be gentle and responsible when around animals.

In the spring we incubate eggs and hatch chicks, that end up in my farm's coop making eggs for us to eat. It is an awesome lesson in many biology concepts. We study an egg theme and life cycle theme.

2016 we had ducks, instead. The two year olds were FASCINATED. For children that are usually go, go, go, they would stand or sit around the duck enclosure for up to an hour, just watching them.

We also have tadpoles from the farm pond every spring.

While the two's aren't able to understand deserts, mountains, and other biomes not within their realm of reference, they can understand that different parts of our outdoor environment provide different living conditions for different plants and animals. 

They know that some bugs live under the bug boards where it is moist and shady. They know that some bugs, different ones, live on our squash plants in the sun. They understand that the squirrels live in the trees and the bunnies on the ground. 

I can, however, create artificial biomes to introduce some expanded diversity of creatures and environments.

Physiology & anatomy
I start teaching body parts as soon as they can talk. It's one of the first rounds of vocabulary they get down. At two, we move on to more advanced body parts, and bodily functions. We talk about healthy foods and how certain foods help us to do certain things. They begin to learn about their muscles, heart, five senses, that they are growing, how they can get sick, and how to take care of their bodies.

Entemology & bugs
We have a very diverse outdoor environment. We have access to a wide variety of bugs, and the children are encouraged to explore them. Worms. They LOVE the worms and know where to dig them up. They also know they have to put them back where they got them so they can go back to their worm family.

Botany & mycology
We have a large organic garden. The two's help start plants, assist with garden chores, harvest, and even prep items like cherries for eating or freezing.

We also have a very diverse plant and tree population. The children are encouraged to explore the flowers, leaves, herbs, and fruit within the environment with all their senses.

Data collection and interpretation
A LOT of this is going on within them, as they assess, interpret, re-direct, assess, interpret, etc. They are just two, but we still talk about how many we planted, how many we harvested, if we have more pumpkins or more carrots today. We talk about why there are more rolly pollies under the board today than yesterday. We talk about how it is hotter today than yesterday. We talk about why the worms like to live in the leaves, but not in the sand.

Astronomy
Not much, but the two's can find the moon if it's out, tell you if it is a circle or crescent moon, and we talk about how the moon changes and moves over us. They know about stars and we talk about the sun being a star. We talk about living on a ball called earth and that it is a planet.

Geology & archaeology
Again, not much, but I have collected rocks from my travels that they can wet down and see the stratification and coloring. We have limestone with fossils laying around. We also have rock collections I've bought. We talk about dirt, rocks, stuff in rocks, and sand being smashed up rock.

They learn that there is interesting stuff down below the grass and dirt to explore.

Summary
Children are natural scientists. Their understanding of scientific concepts comes, in a large part, fluidly from exploring a dynamic environment. The problem is when the environment is sterile. When children are spending days in an unnatural environment, on playgrounds full of only mulch with metal and plastic play structures, without even a stick to dig with, their scientific learning is stunted. Environments need to be engaging to all the senses with unlimited opportunities to explore scientific concepts.