The nose knows!  Here are some great activities to encourage your child to focus on the smells around them (good and bad!).

1. Name that Smell - children LOVE to experience different smells, especially kitchen-type smells around this time of year.  dab cotton balls with extracts and scents.  Have your child smell them and try to identify them or match them.  A good game to play is a scent-match game.  Make a pair of cotton balls for each scent and have your child match them up!
2. Breathe Deep!  Identify smells (fire in fireplace, freshly mowed grass, flower smells, skunk, etc) that can be found outside.  Simply step out your door and smell…what is it your nose smells?
3. Hold your nose - this is a great exercise for both taste and smell.  Provide a variety of foods to taste, but do so while holding your nose shut.  See how lack of smell can alter the taste of a food, such as oranges, apples, juice, tomatoes and cheese.  Does it work with cookies and cake as well?

Learning to look for details can be a fun and enjoyable lesson for children and adults alike.  Here are some great ideas for working with young children in developing visual discrimination and perception!

1. I Spy - This is a classic game that involves no extra tools, only a friend or two and a pair of eyes!  Have the person who is it locate an object, and without telling what or where it is, give clues, such as “I spy something GREEN” or “I spy something COLD”.  Participants then try to guess the object based on clues given.  This is a perfect in-house game, backyard game, carpool game, road trip game, waiting-in-line-at-the-grocery-store game…you get the point!
2. Introduce your child to Optical Illusions. Optical illusions are pictures or objects that try to “trick” the brain into thinking it is seeing something that is actually different than it seems.  Here are a couple of great sites for optical illusions: http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ and http://colorcube.com/illusions/illusion.htm
3. Pin the Tail - this is a classic birthday party game, but give children the opportunity to study the picture from a distance before attempting to attach a tail (or clown nose or a race car wheel - whatever the “pinning” object may be!) while blindfolded.  This allows the child to judge distance and approximate location of an object in a fun way.
4. Play the “What’s Missing” game - my pre-kindergarten class LOVES this game.  Take 3 - 6 objects (depending on the child’s age and skill level) and lay them out on a table.  Talk about the objects - color, size, type - and then have the child hide their eyes (in my class, the kids go stand by the cubbies until the rest of the class calls them back.  While the child is not looking, hide one object.  When the child returns, he or she must guess which object is missing.
5. Complete the picture - this is a great activity for older children.  Cut a small picture from a magazine - part of a table, a forest scene, the view of a street - and glue it to the middle of a blank sheet of paper.  Have the child expand the drawing to show what is missing from this small “snapshot” picture.  The possibilities are endless of what lies beyond the frame of the picture!

1. Target Recalls Dive Sticks Due to Impalement Hazard 

2.

ImagiPLAY Recalls Bead Maze Toys Due to Laceration Hazard

Our senses are not simply tools to help us thrive and survive in the world; they can be excellent “accessories” for tons of fun with children!  Here are a few activities to try with kids to get them to listen to the sounds around them!

1. Name that Sound - my preschooler LOVES playing this game, and it is perfect to play just about anywhere.  We take a blanket and crawl underneath it and stay really still, listening to sounds around us to identify.  When the weather is good, this is a great game to try outdoors, whether the sounds are cars on the road, birds or wind in the trees or neighbors talking nearby.  By blocking the other senses (sight and smell in particular), the sense of hearing is heightened.  Playing indoors is just as fun, as we discover sounds like the refrigerator making ice, the clock ticking, and the heater turning on!
2. Telegraph - this classic game is good to play with a group of children.  Have one person start by whispering a simple message into another person’s ear, such as “My mother made eggs for breakfast.”.  Once the message is received, each person turns to another to whisper and pass it along until it reaches the last person.  That person states the message out loud and the group can find out how close the original message and the final message are.  It is a great tool to use to teach children to listen for detail!
3. Name that Noise - much like the song, “Old Macdonald”, children create sounds and then try to identify them.  The sounds don’t have to be just animal sounds made with voice, though.  Try a squeeky door, a rhythm that is clapped out, or humming a popular song.
4. Make A Sound Band - using only your body, try to create sounds and rhythms to fit together as a “band”.  Have several people create sound without the aid of instruments, such as a whistle, a clap, leg pats, tapping the cheeks, or other various sounds.  Put them together for a unique instrumentation!
5. Marco Polo - this famous “pool game” doesn’t have to be played in the heat of the summer alone!  Have the person who is “it” stand with his or her eyes shut.  Another person should move quietly around him or her, stop and clap a few times softly.  “It” should point to where he or she believes the clapper is standing.  This hones in on discriminatory hearing skills - being able to select certain sounds when there might be other sounds in range as well.

(aka - Ideas To Get Your Kids On Board With Cleaning Up Without Going Crazy Yourself)

Apparently, one of the most painful things for our boys is to clean the playroom and bedroom.  Sometimes, the clutter is so bad that it trickles into the living room, and that’s when I know the mess in our playroom must be BAD.  And, it is time for some intervention.  Here are some ideas to try to motivate your kids to clean up (let me know if they work for you!).

1. Baby (timed) steps - sometimes, the mess can be quite overwhelming.  So, I set a timer and have my boys clean what they can before the time runs out.  I usually set the timer somewhere between five and ten minutes, although you can set it for any amount of time.  My boys love to “race the clock”, and they also appreciate the fact that they are guaranteed a break when the timer goes off.
2. Scavenger hunt cleaning - my older son is very motivated by money (and my younger one as well, by default), so I will sometimes hide pennies or other coins under a few toys in a cluttered area.  The boys love looking for secret change, but the rule is that anything they look under must be put away, whether money is there or not.  When the money is all found, I let them “buy” a special snack or treat as a reward.
3. For a while, my boys’ definition of “clean” and MY definition of “clean” were two completely different concepts!  So, after one massive cleaning effort, we took pictures of the finished area…pictures of the bookshelf, the toy cars, the train track, and even the inside of desk drawers.  When it is time to clean up, we take out the pictures to remember what “clean” really means.  My boys have a model to follow, and I get the “clean” I expect!

What’s your favorite way to motivate your kids to clean?  Leave a comment and share your ideas!

While perusing the blogosphere this week, I came across a link to an interesting site:  Plant It Forward.  This site is dedicated to the preservation of forests for generations to come by planting trees to replace the ones harvested each day. 

Plant It Forward has a great database of ideas for moms, teachers, grandparents, and kids.  You can find ideas for homemade, recycled gifts, projects, and home improvement ideas.  Look for information on recycling and reducing the amount of “stuff” you throw away each day.  Most of the activities are easy enough for everyone to try and enjoy.  Plant It Forward also gives information on planting your own trees and boosting your own recycling program (or even getting started with recycling).

Go check out the Plant It Forward site and post your favorite idea here!

Here’s a wonderfully simple way to focus on helping others as the holidays approach.  All you need is a large jar and some sort of item to use as a “counter”.  In our house, we used dried pinto beans.  Pennies would also be a good counter, or even pebbles.

One of my husband’s and my main goals as the holidays approach is to teach our children about the gift of giving of ourselves.  We do this by focusing on ways to be helpful without being asked and without fanfare or reward.  The focus is on the act of kindness.  To reinforce this lesson, we set a large jar on the kitchen counter along with a shallow dish with a supply of dried beans in it.

Each time one of us (children and adults alike) was helpful to another family member, a friend, a neighbor or even a stranger, we moved a bean from the dish into the jar.  Over the next several weeks, we watch the number of beans in the jar grow.  We also talk about being helpful on Sundays when we are all dining together.  We share ideas of how to be helpful and come up with new ways to help and try out during the upcoming week. 

These small acts can be something simple, such as helping a schoolmate at the water fountain or aiding in a search for a lost toy or item.  Or, it can be something larger, such as helping with the dishes when it isn’t even your turn, or cleaning up your room without being told.  Regardless, everyone is on his or her honor to help “fill the jar”. 

On Christmas Eve, after the kids go to sleep, “Santa” comes to our house and replaces the beans with something a bit more festive, such as chocolate candies or jellybeans.  There are usually “a few more” than there were beans.  After all, Santa’s a very giving person as well!  It helps tie in this wonderful lesson we want our children to learn with the fun of Christmas.

This is a great idea to try year-round.  Once the jar is filled, the family can trade it in for something special, such as a trip to the movies or an ice-cream night.  If using pennies, trade in the pennies for folding change and use that for the special reward!

4. Toy Xylophones Recalled by King Import Warehouse Due to Violation of Lead Paint Standard

4. Toy Xylophones Recalled by King Import Warehouse Due to Violation of Lead Paint Standard