Article by: Kids Activity Calendar

Words can open up a world of knowledge and adventure for your children, and reading to them is so important in their development.

Here are 6 ways to make reading to your child a habit.

• Set up a book shelf in your child’s room and place all of his or her books there.
• Read your child’s favorite book over and over.
• Go to the library and let your child pick out books.
• Read together with your child.
• Read to your child at bedtime every night.
• Choose a book with a particular character whose stories are serialized (for instance Amelia Bedelia or Magic Treehouse).

For some, perhaps the only time you read to your child is when Santa or the Easter Bunny makes their appearance every year. Reading to your child should be a daily and ongoing event. Perhaps you do read to your child frequently, and become caught up in one particular book that your child absolutely loves. Whether that is the case or not, this is the beginning of their interest in books and stories. Have you noticed the huge variety of children’s books available today? This is due to the fact that reading has become the focal point in our society, especially since many public school children are lacking in reading skills.

Have your child participate in the act of picking out books by taking them to your local library. Sign them up with their own library card. The myriad of books are overwhelming, and there are certainly enough from which your child can choose his particular genre. All the colorful books and titles are incentive enough for your child to take home a stack of books for you to read at bedtime. Has your child become fascinated with a particular magazine, either at a store or a medical office? If so, subscribe to the magazine in your child’s name. Think of how excited they will be when their magazine arrives!

Do you have bookshelves at home filled with books? This is no longer the case today. Children can have their own private mini library at home. Between garage sales, discount racks, and bargain books, you can find books to fit any budget. Undoubtedly, this will give them a sense of ownership as well. While you are having family dinner, why not discuss the stories you have read to your child. This will keep the interest alive and your child will be full of anticipation; wanting to know more about the characters they have come to love.

These 6 ways to make reading to your child a habit are just the beginning of a long journey leading to enlightenment. The bond you form with your child by reading to them is immeasurable. The stories can take you and your child on new and exciting adventures every time you open a new book. Take the time to read to your child. It is that important!

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Nicole Dean co-created www.kidsactivitycalendar.com to help her child and others prepare for Kindergarten in a fun way. To get your free sample lesson, stop by www.kidsactivitycalendar.com/letter-a-sample.htm today.

My family and I love this recipe during the cold winter months!

Creamy Potato Soup

3/4 cup chopped onion

4 cups chopped peeled potatoes

2 teaspoons butter

1/2 cup milk

10 ounces of chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 teaspoon parsley flakes

1 cup water salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in butter in saucepan. Add broth, water, salt, pepper, and potatoes. Simmer, covered for 20 to 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Puree half of the mixture in blender; return to saucepan. Stir in milk and parsley flakes. Heat to serving temperature.

Yield: 4 servings

OK, bathing kids 101 - never leave child unattended. However, once you have them bathed and they just want to play, do you just sit or do you use the time wisely? As a homeschooling mother of 3, I find that I have to constantly multi-task. This time of the day offers a wonderful opportunity to do this.

You could use the time to clean the sink, catch up on some reading, crochet, make a phone call, teach your child a song, poem or Bible verse, paint your toenails or shock your husband by applying some make-up while you’re in there. The possibilities are endless. If you do this, you will no longer look at bath time as a drudgery.

Scuba Ben

Silly Ben

Sweet Ben

Do you have trouble getting your kids to eat their vegetables? I sure do. My son used to be great about trying and eating just about anything…and then he turned 2 ½. Now it is pretty much impossible to get him to eat anything other than corn when it comes to vegetables. So I had to come up with some fun and sometimes sneaky ways to get some veggies in him. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) Make a big pot of vegetable soup, and then add some fun noodle shapes. You can use alphabet noodles or look for some fun novelty shapes. You may be able to find some cartoon characters, toy and sports shapes etc. I have even seen pumpkin and Christmas tree shapes. With a little luck your kids will be too busy spelling words, or identifying the shape to notice all the veggies they are eating in the soup.

2) If you can’t make them eat it, make them drink it. Pour some vegetable juice over ice and add a straw, a cocktail umbrella or a stick of celery and watch them drink it up. Your kids may not get as much fiber as eating the entire vegetable, but getting them to drink their vegetables is better than not getting any vegetables in their system.

3) Have you tried offering them some raw vegetables with some ranch dressing to dip them in? Many kids who don’t care much for cooked vegetables will eat them up if they can dip them. Just grab a bag of baby carrots and cut up some red and yellow peppers and some cucumber. Arrange them on a plate with a little bit of ranch dressing or your favorite vegetable dip on the side.

4) Take it even a step further and let them create artwork out of their vegetables. Offer raw vegetables in different colors and shapes and encourage them to make a vegetable collage on their plate. You can easily make a face using slices of cucumber as eyes, a baby carrot as nose and a slice of red pepper as a mouth. You can use watercress or shredded carrots or even some cheese as hair. Before you know it, you’ll find them sampling their “art supplies”.

5) To get them to eat more vegetables at dinnertime try a little salad bar. Put out some lettuce, some sliced or chopped tomato, slices of cucumber, shredded carrot, slices of red and yellow peppers, small broccoli flowerets and anything else you can think of. You may also want to offer them some choices when it comes to salad dressing. Favorites in our house are Ranch, Italian, Catalina, and French. To top it all of set out some croutons and shredded cheese.

6) Get the kids together and make a cold vegetable pizza. Start out with a can of crescent rolls. Unroll the dough, but don’t pull the triangle shapes apart. Instead push the seams together and bake on a baking sheet according to the package directions. Let the sheet of dough cool completely, then spread with some crème cheese (we like a vegetable or herb flavored one) and top with some thinly sliced raw veggies. Cut into squares and serve.

7) Get them involved in the kitchen especially when it comes to cooking. Ask them to wash the vegetables, if they are old enough let them cut veggies (under your supervision of course), let them help you stir, or anything else you can think of that would be age appropriate. You’ll be amazed at how proud they will be of their finished product. Believe me, they’ll try just about anything if they made it.

If everything else fails, hide the vegetables in other food. My mom used to make us some special orange mashed potatoes. We thought it was very fancy, but all she did was to cook some carrots with the potatoes and mashed them right in there. You can also cover broccoli with tomato sauce or cheese. Think of a dish your child really enjoys and sneak a little bit of vegetable in there.

Give a few of these ideas a try and see which ones work best for your children. Keep at it and sooner or later they will start to develop a taste for vegetables.

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Wondering how to teach your child the alphabet? Here is a simple tool that you probably have around your house right now. Don’t forget to download the free lesson from Kids Activity Calendar at the end of the article!

Rediscovering Coloring Books

By: Kids Activity Calendar

With the world of computers, children are learning to do everything on them. What ever happened to coloring books? They seem to have faded into the woodwork as technology has taken the forefront. Teach your children a love for good old-fashioned coloring again. Buy them a coloring book.

The basic concept of coloring books has not changed in the last twenty years or so. They are books filled with outlined pictures that children use crayons to decorate. In fact, the whole point of crayons was for coloring books. Crayons were less messy than paints and they made different types of lines depending on how you held them. If you used the point, the line was thin and bold. If you used the side of the crayon, the line was wide and lighter. The main rule that teachers wanted children to learn was how to stay inside the lines. As long as you stayed within the confines of the pre-printed picture, you could do anything.

Coloring books suspended the concept of reality. You may have a picture of a house and a sun on the page, but who said that the sun had to be yellow? With the invention of new colors beyond the basic eight or ten colors came a whole new world of color for kids. The sun could be an orange-red and the sky could be periwinkle or midnight blue instead of the standard light blue or blue. The grass could be forest green or lime green instead of light or dark green. Pictures of ordinary animals and objects became extraordinary with a little bold coloring. Crayons were the paint and the coloring book was the canvas for creating new works of art.

Coloring books are teaching tools. Since kids weren’t allowed to write in their textbooks at school, companies created coloring books that also taught the letters of the alphabet and shapes. As the child looks at the letter “T” and makes the sound, they can also trace the letter with a crayon. On a coloring book page, you could draw anything else you wanted. It was yours and only yours to do with as you wished. Coloring books tell bible stories and nursery rhymes. They also have coloring books for holidays where you can color Easter eggs and Christmas trees and cut them out for decorations. Coloring books became functional.

Now, children have no-line coloring books. With these, the children have a page where they are supposed to draw the object themselves, like a butterfly, and then color it. They can be the picture creator and its painter. Story books have become coloring books. A child can learn to read a classic story and color the pictures when they are through. The possibilities are endless, but the fun of drawing is there, too. You don’t even have to stay inside the lines if you don’t want to.

Coloring books are larger now, too. I have seen coloring books as tall as a small child. They contain poster-sized pictures of people and places. When I was in Sunday school as a child, I won a wall sized nativity map that I could color and then hang on my wall to display. Coloring books have come a long way, but are they being replaced by video games and painting programs on the computer? As long as parents keep buying them, they will have an important place in the lives of children.

Bring back the love of coloring to your child. Buy them a coloring book today. Computers will still be there when they get older. For now, let them explore for themselves through the pages of a coloring book.

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Are you ready to challenge your preschooler’s mind even more? Take a look at www.kidsactivitycalendar.com for Alphabet Fun for your preschooler. The alphabet audios, coloring sheets and other activities are a great way to prepare your little one for kindergarten. To get your free sample lesson, stop by www.kidsactivitycalendar.com/letter-a-sample.htm today.