It’s nearly summer…which means the sun is shining early and late.  Although this is wonderful for plants and trees…it is often not great for getting your kids to go to bed (and stay there).  What kid wants to go to bed while the sun is still up, anyway?

The fact is, most young children need 11-12 hours of sleep each night.  This means that your child will probably be both going to bed and waking up while the sun is brightly shining.

Here are a few suggestions for ensuring that your child gets enough sleep in the summer.

 

1)  Stick to a consistent routine.  If you usually give your child a bath at 7:30 and put them in bed at 8, keep up with the same routine in the summer.  With the exception of special occasions and holidays, your child needs the consistency to ensure he/she gets a proper amount of sleep each night.

 

2) Use blackout curtains.  Find some way to keep the sunlight out of your child’s room at night and in the mornings.  We purchased blackout curtains when our oldest was about 18 months old and decided that he wanted to go to bed (and wake up) with the sun.  Many stores also sell blackout liners that you can attach to the back of your existing curtains.

 

3) Teach your child not to get out of bed until the clock shows a certain time.  If you have a child who is naturally an early riser despite your best efforts to block out the sun, you might consider putting a clock in his/her room.  Tell your child that she can only get up when there is a 7 on the first number of the clock (or whatever time you want her to get up).  If your child is too young to recognize numbers, you might consider trying a nightlight with a wake-up indicator.  This will help regulate her natural sleep cycle and ensure that she isn’t waking you up at 5:30 every morning.  :)

 

What suggestions do you have for ensuring your child gets enough sleep in the summer?

Please note:  The links in this post are my affiliate links.  Please read my full disclosure policy.  

As summer approaches and you start thinking about the many arts and craft projects you want to do with your kids, why not have a little fun making your own homemade art supplies first?  Here are just a few of our tried-and-true recipes for homemade art supplies…

Homemade Finger Paint

Homemade Glue

Homemade Water Colors

DIY Paint-with-Water Pages

Homemade Face Paint

Homemade Bubbles (Recipe from the Smithsonian)

Air-drying Baking Soda Modeling Clay

What’s your favorite homemade art supply recipe???

Here is just one picture from our weekend…

And here is one of my favorite quotes on motherhood…

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  -Elizabeth Stone

I am super excited and honored to be the last stop on the Little Praise Party Blog Tour!

My blogging friend Amanda from Impress Your Kids recently introduced me to a new CD called Little Praise Party- Happy Day Everyday from a friend of hers named Yancy.  I was super excited about this wonderful resource:  We love listening to music that has a great message and encourages us in our walk with God!

As part of the Little Praise Party Blog Tour, Yancy is sharing one of the songs on her brand new CD exclusively for US!  This song, called “Don’t Be a Turkey” is a great reminder to be thankful in every circumstance.  It would especially be great around Thanksgiving!  Take a look…

What a fun song!  And what a cool gal!!  There are so many other great songs included on this CD…

How would you like to win a copy of Yancy’s New CD/DVD combo (a value of $19.95).  Just leave a comment!  

For an extra entry:

-“Like” Yancy Not Nancy and leave another comment

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only (apologies to my international readers).  The giveaway will end on Wednesday, May 16 at 10am (CST).  A winner will be randomly selected shortly after and notified by e-mail. By entering, you are agreeing to these official rules.

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Little Praise Party can purchased through Yancy’s website or on iTunes {the DVD is only available on her website}. When ordering from her site use the code: YANCYLOVESME to get free shipping.

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Also, be sure and check out the previous stops on the Little Praise Party Blog Tour!

Monday April 30 Impress Your Kids

Tuesday May 1 Mama Hall

Wednesday May 2 God Centered Mom

Thursday May 3 Homeschool Creations

Friday May 4 ModSquad

Saturday May 5 When You Rise

Sunday May 6 4tunate

Monday May 7 Inspired To Action

Tuesday May 8 Home With the Boys

Wednesday May 9 1+1+1=1

Thursday May 10 Muthering Heights

Friday May 11 MOB Society

Take advantage of time in the car, whether it’s 5 minutes or 30!  ThinkMagnet shares some great tips for teachable moments for your littlest backseat drivers.

Two-daloo shares some fun caterpillar and butterfly activities for babies and toddlers!

Raising Little Disciples shares a fun idea for making bird feeders out of fruit!

Have an idea or activity to share??? Link up below! Next week I’ll be sharing my favorites from the ones you submit!

Feel free to add the button to the post you’re submitting!

After sharing my tips for choosing a good children’s book last week, I thought I would introduce you to the Caldecott Award.

If you’ve been around Children’s Literature at all, you’ve probably heard books referred to as “Caldecott Winners” or “Caldecott Honor Books”.  Here is what the Caldecott Award is all about:

“The Caldecott Medal was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator Randolph Caldecott. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children. ”  -ALSC website

Although a book is awarded this honor based on its illustrations, the Caldecott winners are normally well-written and extremely engaging for young children.

Here are the Caldecott Winners for the last 15 years.  Go here to find the complete list of Caldecott winners since 1938 (along with each year’s honor books).

2012

A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka

2011

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead

2010

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

2009

The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson

2008

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

2007

Flotsam by David Wiesner

2006

The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster

2005

Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

2004

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

2003

My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann

2002

The Three Pigs by David Wiesner

2001

So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George

2000

Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback

1999

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

1998

Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky

1997

Golem by David Wisniewski

Have you read any of these books?  Which is your favorite?  

Today I’m over at MomLife Today sharing about an opportunity to serve alongside our children.  Next week is Nursing Home Week and I’ve shared a few ideas for how we can honor our elderly by taking some time to visit them.

Head on over to MomLife Today to read this post and share any additional ideas you have!

There are a few wonderful things about this activity.  First of all, it teaches left-to-right orientation, which is an important pre-reading skill.  Secondly, it is great for teaching phonemic awareness and encouraging the child to blend the word together at the end (don’t know what phonemic awareness is?  Click here and scroll to #8).  Finally, it’s a wonderful way for kinesthetic learners to realize that there are distinct, individual sounds (or phonemes) within whole words!

Big Brother has known the majority of the letter sounds for several months, but he has just now started showing interest in starting to put those sounds together.  He started attempting this himself in books and on signs he sees, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to start working with him a little here and there.  Let me clarify, however, by saying that we are not pressuring him to “read” as a 4-year old but we are piggy-backing on his natural curiosities!

I love to repurpose toys for educational games and this was certainly no exception!  There are two toys we used that essentially worked exactly the same way:  This Whacky Ball Maze and this Pound-a-Peg from Melissa & Doug.  In addition to one of these toys (or something similar), you’ll need some dot stickers (like what you use to price garage-sale merchandise) and a permanent marker.

1.  Write your letters on the dot stickers.  I chose to do a 3-letter consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word to make it simple.

2.  Place the letter stickers on the pounding toy.

3.  Show your child the left side of the toy and ask him/her to say each sound that the letter makes while he hits the ball.

This is Big Brother’s kind of learning!

“Can we do it again???”

Version #2 (with the Melissa and Doug Pound-a-Peg)

Attach the letter stickers to the toy.  Remove the remaining pegs to prevent confusing your child.

Let your child pound…

…and pound!

The hard part about being a blogger around Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) is that I can’t really share the gift ideas I come up with because the people who receiving these gifts also frequently visit my blog (my mom, my mother-in-law, my husband).  This Mother’s Day my mother-in-law will be out of town, so we had an excuse to give her the present a little early…which also meant that I could share this with you with a few days left to get it ready!

The ever-popular idea to spell out “GRANDMA” using pictures of the kids holding up each corresponding letter worked out perfectly for our family because there are SEVEN grandkids on my husband’s side…and there are 7 LETTERS in the word “GRANDMA”!!!  Perfect!

I’ve seen similar ideas framed, but I thought it would be fun to make a kid-friendly refrigerator display (and I couldn’t find a frame with space for 7 pictures).  This way whenever the kids visit Grandma and Grandpa’s house, they can look at their picture and spell out Grandma’s name on the refrigerator.  :)

Here’s what you’ll need:  Letters about 9″ tall spelling out your chosen name (I used wooden letters, but you could also cut out letters from poster-board or foam), a camera, access to a place where you can get your pictures developed (or a printer to print them yourself), a laminator (optional) and some magnetic adhesive roll (which we got for free from CraftProjectIdeas.com…their products are available for purchase at Walmart).

My favorite part was taking pictures of the kids!  There were oh-so-cute and very cooperative (for the most part, anyway)!

After I took the pictures, I had each child’s picture developed into wallet-size prints at Walgreens (use the code “mayprint” to get 40% off).   I cut them out,  laminated them individually, and then attached the magnet backing to each one.

Trying it out on our refrigerator…don’t mind the smudge marks!

While we had all the kids in one spot, we also chose to take a few pictures of ALL the grandkids TOGETHER!  This will be another gift!

My oldest nephew was not very impressed with our attempts at getting the kids to smile!

Love this one!  Silly kids!

Looking for another Mother’s Day gift idea?  Make this “Following in Your Footsteps” picture to frame!

I love the idea of giving “coupons” for Mother’s Day.  My Love Language is definitely “Quality Time”, so things like that always tend to mean more to me than anything else!  I also love cute homemade gifts as well, so this Mother’s Day gift idea combines these two ideas into one!  Another variation could be writing things you love about Mom (or Grandma) on each craft stick.

Here’s what you’ll need:  Jumbo Craft Sticks (sent to us for free by CraftProjectIdeas.com), Cupcake Liners (both the regular size and the mini), scissors, a glue stick, a permanent marker, and a small container to put the “flowers” in (I used an old baby food jar).

1.  Turn the regular-sized cupcake liner inside out (so that it is now a bowl-shape with the print on the inside).  Glue it onto the top of your craft stick.

2.  Turn the mini-cupcake liner inside out as well and glue that on top of the larger one.

3.  Write your “coupons” (1 Giant Hug, 5 Minutes of Cuddle Time, Wipe Down the Kitchen Table, Fold Laundry, etc).

4.  Repeat for the number of “flowers” you choose and then put into your container.  I used some of our Lemongrass-Scented Playdough I had in the pantry to hold all of the craft sticks up.  Worked like a charm!

Looking for other ideas?  Create a personalized pot holder or candle with your child or make these picture refrigerator magnets…

What is your favorite Mother’s Day gift idea???