Busy Box 6 - Stickers

It never ceases to astound me how much children LOVE stickers.  I was recently speaking to a friend of mine who teachers 4 year old kindergarten and she mentioned a parent of theirs worked for a clothing company and donated pages and pages of small round stickers with "s" "m" "l" (small, medium, large).  She said the 4 year olds loved them even going home with a small white sticker saying "s" seemed to thrill them beyond belief.

Basically not much to this I have just collected stickers overtime and added them to a box.  I save this box for particularly challenging days when I am desperate for anything to keep the little one occupied.
 

Veggie garden fun

Best way to get kids to eat veggies is get them involved in growing them!

If you are not a gardener I can assure you veggie gardening is easy. 
My only tips are
- Start with something simple (I started with 4 different veggies at once which was too many!)
- Start with a good soil base (mix some good organic potting mix in with your soil before you start)
- Make sure they get lots of water.

For about $3 we bought a punnet of Cauliflowers, some turned to seed but most grew well and we had many evenings with home grown Cauliflower for dinner, much cheaper and tastier than what you buy from the shops.

The best part was getting the kids involved.  When we harvested our first Cauliflowers, my son (who has refused to eat Cauliflower since he was a bub and it was pureed) ate it raw straight from the plant.  Who would have thought veggies have become one of our best home made toys yet!

Can't wait for our carrots and celery to finish growing!.

Cheesymite Scrolls

These are an absolute hit with kids, they are relatively healthy and freeze well.  (I freeze them individually and start defrosting the night before for lunch box). Kids also love getting involved in the making of them, kneading, spreading the vegemite and sprinkling cheese.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1/2 Cup wholemeal flour
90g butter
2/3 cup milk
3/4 cup of tasty or colby cheese
1/4 cup parmesan cheese (if you don't have parmesan cheese - just add more tasty cheese)
1 - 1 1/2 Tbsp Vegemite
extra milk 

Method
- Preheat oven to 180C.  Line a large biscuit tray with baking paper.
- Rub the butter through both of the flours until it is of breadcrumb consistency.  Add half of the cheese mix and milk and work into a dough with your hands.  On floured bench gently knead  (be careful not to over knead) and then roll out into a square approximately 1cm deep.
- Spread Vegemite evenly over the dough and sprinkle with remaining cheese. 
- Roll the dough away from you into a long rope shape.  Cut into eight equal rounds and place them on the baking tray.  Brush on the top with the extra milk.  Bake for about 20 minutes  (until just brown on top and cooked through).

Busy Box 7 - matching/sorting game

You can use this games in many different ways for matching, memory and sorting.  The games encourage concentration, observation, turn taking and great skill development for 2-3 year olds.

I created these sheets just by picking pictures my son knows, printed four copies and laminated them. I have then kept two as base mats and then cut the other two up into small pieces.  We have used the game a number of times to play the matching and memory games with our two and a half year old and he has really enjoyed them.  At this point we still have to help a bit with the memory game but he is really improving.

Stage 1 - Matching
Start simple by giving the child one board and one set of cards and find the cards and match them to the place on the board.
Display 2 sets of cards mixed up but right side up and get the child to match together the cards.

Stage 2.
Game 1 - MEMORY

The object of the game is to collect the most matching pairs.
Shuffle the cards. Lay out the cards face down in rows forming a large rectangle on the table or floor. Make sure the cards are not touching each other. They need to be able to be flipped over without disturbing any cards around them. Decide who will go first. Typically it is the youngest player that goes first.
The first player chooses a card and carefully turns it over. Be sure not to bother the surrounding cards. The player then selects another card and turns it over. If the two cards are a matching pair for example two dogs then they take the two cards and start a stack. The player is awarded another turn for making a match and goes again.

If the cards are not a match they are turned back over and it is now the next players turn.

The next player chooses their first card and turns it over. If it is a match for one of the cards the previous player turned over then they try to remember where that matching card was and turn it. If they are successful at making a match they place the cards in their stack and choose another card.

If the first card turned over was not a match for one previously turned over the player selects another card in an attempt of making a pair.

If they are unsuccessful in making a match they flip the cards back over and play is passed to the next player.

The game continues until all of the cards have been paired.
* you can start the game with only half the number of pairs until your child gets the hang of it.

GAME 2 - BINGO
The object of the game is to be the first player to match all of the tiles/cards to the squares on their sheet OR first player to match a whole line.
Each player takes a sheet, shuffle the cards and lay them out on the table face down.  Each player randomly picks up a card and matches it to their sheet. taking turns one card at a time.  When the player completes a line they call bingo and win that game.

GAME 3 - SNAP
Object of the game is to get as many cards as possible.  The dealer shuffles the cards and one by one places them face up in a stack.  When a matching card is placed on top of it's pair the first player to see calls snap and takes the stack of cards.  The dealer continues to place the cards down until another pair is matched.
Game 4 - Go Fish