Children will ask questions at times that make you cringe because the comment is said in earshot and often worse we don’t know a good response right now to the question or statement.

It’s terrible. Terrible for us both.

Seeing a child or adult with a disability  is no different.

I wonder who has heard my child shout that comment. I try to convince myself that it can’t be too many?  Yet I feel I need to say something to cover over his missed statement or question but no good idea comes to mind.  Then there are other times and some questions I’m not ready to answer because I don’t have it all worked out yet.  We want to be open and discuss issues but we’d like to control when these topics come up or at least have an opportunity to do more than feel embarrassed, shush them, or pretend that we didn’t hear their comment. Since none of those offer a good solution the question is still there hanging like a ripe fruit ready to drop.

We’re being more prepared by establishing a time and place to start voicing these questions, a place we can discuss things further.

One way we’ve done this is to use TableTopics Family at dinner. The questions are purely random and often pretty deep. Deeper than if we were just sitting at the table and now had to produce a good open ended question that isn’t full of agenda. We have the Spanish/English edition and the questions help us as adults form better answers and give the opportunity to the kids to discuss their answers. It is interesting to see how they take the questions according to their age.  These types of questions have helped us ask our own questions and feed them into the dinner time discussions. We change the questions and sometimes skip questions.

Children and adults have disabilities yet most of the mainstream books we find in our library or bookshop don’t have a lot of children or adults shown with disabilities. Why? How can we teach about disabilities or share these difficult conversations?

It’s probably one of the number one things children do when they see difference- question it.

Books are such an easy way to introduce conversations about disability with our children.

Older kids confusion

As children get older I’ve also noticed how confused they get about things. It’s well worth going back to books to iron our misunderstandings that have cropped up.Younger children are influenced by older siblings, TV and what they hear. Driving the boys around it’s really interesting hearing them make sense of something they don’t fully understand together. Especially how easily they come to a consensus that is just not true. It is often around the tricky issues that no one really talks about like disability, race, puberty and any toilet references. When left to make up their minds an interesting conclusion they make.

If you’re looking for some books on disabilities try the selections below.

Special-Needs Children’s Books Getting Attention ::  Books on disabilities :: book and packs on disabilities

38 book recommendations on disabilities   ::  Children’s Books With Disabled Characters

6 ways to set up a routine around difficult conversations

1. When you are caught short unable to say the right response, acknowledge their response and let them know you’re not sure  and we’ll look into it later.
2. Look into it later. Don’t sweep it under the carpet.
3. Establish a time when you can share questions and offer a rerun of questions from the day. Dinnertime is great
4. Modify your reading books from the library or rotation to include books that feature questions or offer a chance for discussion.
5. Don’t over do it. Little and often works for most families and age appropriate. A topic focus works well for many families especially if it is curriculum based and the material is diverse. Avoiding boredom is the key. Interest and discussion
6. Make less assumptions that they know already. The preschool grapevine and the TV shouldn’t be the only places they receive information.

What ways to do you have to encourage those difficult conversations?

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Guess what?

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: Remembering the Things They Say  :: Picklesbums

Activities for the body: An Active Alphabet for Toddlers :: Having fun at home

Goodness for the eyes and ears: Family Time And Being Together :: Jendis Journal
This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 97. Baby Massage and play

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Have you made seeded paper with the kids?

This is one of our favourite projects. It takes a bit of time that we fill with endless questions and answers. We hit problems and discovered solutions together.  There’s something about tearing paper in a group that allows time for those type of conversations. It’s a time involved process that depending on your climate can take days so they get to value patience. I tell you there is something about working so hard and seeing what you’ve done that’s more than the smile on their face but a big memory too.

We had made seeded paper before without a screen. This time we would do the usual plus a home made screen and shaped seeded paper.

Homemade screen

We used craft sticks glued together with some netting we had lying around.

It was pretty tricky to do with little fingers but we got there with a double frame. The Quiche dish came in handy to help flatten the frame and allow the glue to really stick well. We were able to add books to the dish to weigh it down. Lastly, we added packing tape around the edges to keep it sturdy and protect the wooden sticks. This was really tricky for me. Next time I would trim this tape better.

Paper Preparation

We all watched a movie on family night and tore paper to add to the bucket. This probably accounts for the large pieces of paper in places Collecting all the paper during the week was easy as we swiped it from the recycling. We added a few shredded paper bits as well for colour. Don’t pack the blender too high with paper and add enough water to blend, mash and pulp. We added too much water but it all dries out in the end. It takes a little longer though. Pulse the blender to bring the paper and water to a mush. Being careful not to overwork your motor.

We worked on two different paper types with a different seeds and colours. Sprinkle seeds on top of pulpy paper. Ours was in a large 9x 12 dish. Dip in the mini screen and be sure to get some seeds. The boys looked like they were panning for gold. The screen wasn’t super strong so we devised a way of holding it supporting from underneath and transferring to the towel.

Flip the screen over so the wet paper is face down on the fluffy towel. Press the second or end of first towel, if it is big, on the top of the screen and press. Ease the fragile paper off the screen with a knife if necessary. We have our very own production line. We repeated this process altogether for most of the afternoon while listening to music.

The routine and system was great to see the boys all taking part. Encouraging each other and finding solutions to the problems.

We experimented with shaped paper with the coloured pulp. Push the pulp inside your cookie cutter. Press on the towel to remove as much water as you can. Ease the fragile thick paper out. We lost a few legs and a broken neck as it’s a tricky business but well worth it. With the small  mini frames we had small pieces of paper. Perfect to send in the mail to family. Great to plant in small places in a pot of our garden.

We’re thinking Mother’s day and Teacher gifts

Here’s what you will need

• Craft sticks, glue, netting, packing tape
• Torn paper we stuck to construction paper, old school letters and shredded paper. We added a few odd pieces of tissue paper bits. We didn’t use newspaper, glossy paper from magazines or card.
• Packets of seeds( 3) The larger the seeds the better to see. It was tricky dealing with tiny seeds.
• Water
• Blender
• Cookie cutters
• Patience and a long stretch of time

Another brilliant way to use seeded paper from Jen at PaintCutPaste :: Handmade Bloom Paper

This post is linked with the Come sow with me meme. Lending our voice to ONE  .Bring your seed posts

___

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We’ve been busy rotating books this week.It’s one of those activities that we all enjoy…..a little too much. It shouldn’t take so long but we all get stuck into the new books out after being away for sometime. You can’t really tell your children off for reading. I tried to do a bring 5 swap 5 but I didn’t anticipate they would bring 5 and take 10. We’re still trying to wade through books and find shelf space. Good problem to have.

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: 20 Ways to “Reset” When the Kids Are Having a Hard Day  :: the pennington point

Activities for the body: Montessori at Home: Movement :: carrots are orange

Goodness for the eyes and ears: Interactive opera for toddlers :: BBC News

This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 96. Experiencing play from a diverse perspective

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Friday Finds {04.05.2012} is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Being a new mum overseas lead me to learn very quickly.

By the time baby and I were ready to go out for the day it was nearly 10:30 and more often 11am. Depending on where we were there wasn’t usually a baby changing room or nursing area. We got used to changing in the car, having a bottle of sanitzer and finding a cute blanket to drape over us so he could nurse. No problem there. You looked around and saw what others were doing and just adapted.

This happened a lot.

On being a good wife and mother

Somehow I believed that to be a good mother and good wife the house needed to be neat, tidy and shipshape before we left. Where had that notion come from?

11 isn’t too bad you say. No it’s not in my foggy sleepy place but it was the extras we did because of where we lived. It never occurred to me to do different or be different, consistently. I had the idea but I would fit in and carry on. Tiredness was overwhelming. The problem was that everything closed at 12 for a three-hour lunch except for the restaurants. Everything.

This break in the day when everything stopped and the focus changed to food, community, fellowship and laughter. Right in the middle of your day.

I was just revving up and now we all stopped.  It took months to adapt and integrate.

When I did everything changed. It was less about getting the house ready but us ready instead to be out and about by 9 and back in time for 10:30 nap. Now I could clean or not while he napped. We had lunchtime with friends that lasted hours. Families were together in the middle of the day. This isn’t a fairy tale or a throwback to the good ole fictional days. This was our life a mere six years ago.  There was a calmness and routine to our day that made it easier to cope.

We left that place with two children and stepped into a large suburb that offered 24 hour everything. People grabbed food on the go. No time for stopping. When you’ve experienced different things you reflect more because you see the impacts on your family.

Experiencing difference

Since we had experienced such different patterns for the same period of day. It was easy to see what worked for us. We could see when we needed to ramp things up or when we just had to stop.

When was the last time you stopped and reflected on the pace of your family life? Looked at what clubs and activities your family take part in and wondered if this is working out well for them.

In our bid to raise playful tots this week we are adjusting our community time. For me that’s unlinking my email from my phone. It’s easy for habits to creep on you and become your norm. I heard two important conversations that encouraged that decision. Jon Acuff’s Keynote from Blissdom 12, via Blissdom at home and his spelling story over the breakfast table; listening to Michael Hyatt from This is your life about work life balance while I cleaned one room and dh cleaned another we happened to be listening at the same time. I’ve been wanting to get out of the habit of email checking in the morning. Now I could.

When I look back at our Italian experience and what we’ve become as a family I see traits that started there. There are some things we’ve lost that I want us to find again. It can’t be the same. We are a family of 5 now. We live and work in a totally different way. However we can plan to do better.

This week is screen free week. April 30 to 6th May. Don’t worry whether you’ve forgotten or you can’t do the week. It’s not about all or nothing. There’s a chance here to stop, reflect and make a change. Trains and trucks take a long time to stop let alone turn around. Families can too. But it starts with us.

Take the time to think about how you are using your screens in your home. What are we modeling? Decide what is acceptable in your family?

Don’t just adapt. Make a choice.

What first steps will you take?

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With all the rain this week we’ve been in and out like yo-yos. One hazard of being inside is that I decided to clear up the recycling area. There were partly broken down boxes sticking out everywhere.  After seeing this pin + time inside we came up with a fun play activity on the spot.

You can watch our journey below in these two short videos

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: New report shows illiteracy costing the world $1.19 trillion :: National Literacy Trust

Activities for the body: Nursery Rhyme activity :: Totally Tots

Goodness for the ears: Reasons to do Homeschool :: The Simple Mom Podcast

This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 95. Mark Making changing the way we think about writing

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Friday Finds {27.04.2012} is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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7 Unexpected Ways to Play

Upon becoming a father, I learned quickly that the best way to support a young infant’s play is not to purchase them a cluster of toys, but to observe what they are interested in and give them the opportunity to further explore. My daughters played with some simple toys in their first months of life but spent far more time inventing their own play by interacting with their environment.

Baby-initiated play is not only a less expensive, more creative option – it’s truly unique to the baby who does it! That being said, paying a little attention to what your baby watches and responds to will go a long way, and here are seven places to start.

1. Patterns. Patterns are everywhere! Our daughters both enjoyed being laid belly-down on our lower legs and bounced as we lay on the floor. Typically they’d look up and around while they bounced, but a boldly patterned shirt would turn their attention
downward without fail. The best thing about patterns is that they can be found in almost anything – clothing, blankets, flooring, upholstery, pillows – the trick is to catch your baby in the act so you can help her continue to play by investigating those patterns that delight her.
2. Glasses. Our babies loved to gaze at eyeglasses, especially those with dark frames that contrast with the rest of their world. Parents always enjoy being face-to-face with their babies, but we found that our babies seemed to enjoy it most when we wore our
eyeglasses at night or on weekends. We could hold them up in front of our face for 3-5 minutes without any sign of boredom on their part.
3. Furniture. During the first few months of life, diaper changes can be a scream fest. Once our daughter started to be able to focus on everyday objects, however, she became entranced by the vertical bars that flanked the top of her change table, and happily patted away at them during changes. Once we noticed her playing this way, we let her spend a little more time at the change table than usual – supervised of course – to help her explore and eventually grab onto the bars. It was even worth keeping  faint light on in the nursery at night. We figured since she was waking up anyway in response to the change, we might as well let her play peacefully while it happened and avoid the usual upset.
4. Mirrors. We first noticed our baby’s affinity for mirrors at the doctor’s office, where a large mirror hung right next to the examination table. This gave our daughter an up-close look at “another baby,” and she was hooked. Our guest bathroom doesn’t have the clutter that our more frequently used bathrooms do, so we made space on the vanity where we could sit with our back to the mirror, hold baby up to the shoulder, and let her enjoy her own reflection. It was adorable to watch her give herself high-fives in
the mirror. The mirrors attached to or integrated with many toys are often of low quality and too small to give babies the entertainment value that a larger mirror you already have will provide.
5. The swing. Our daughter loved to sit in her swing as much as the next, but one day we took her out of the swing and noticed that she liked watching it just as much! Sitting in mom or dad’s arms in a chair nearby, she watched the slow back-and-forth movement
of the swing with a content expression on her face. We began to keep the swing on fora while after taking her out to achieve this response again and again.
6. Anything hanging on you! Any mom with hair long enough to pull knows that a nursing baby will do just that. We found that a chunky necklace toy not only prevented hair-pulling but kept our baby entertained before, during, and after nursing. Just make sure the necklace has features large enough to grasp and a clasp strong enough to take the pull from those strong little hands without breaking. Anything with large, rounded beads made of a softer substance like wood is ideal for infant play.

     
7. Baby carriers. Our daughters loved baby carriers – we used both a Baby Bjorn and an Ergobaby. Both provide enough structure to keep baby safe while doing chores around the house and still give her the freedom to look around or even just at you. When small
enough to face us in the carrier, my daughter’s favorite thing to watch was my face. I’d look down and notice her smiling at the funny face I made while cleaning a dirty dish,and was thrilled to know I was making her happy even as my attention was directed
toward something else. It was a great way to bond and play that didn’t consume both of my hands!

Watching our babies play with the objects of their world is the easiest (and most affordable) way to find out what they like and capture their attention time and time again. Simple household items, including what we wear, sit on, and look at every day, are often more than enough to keep a baby enchanted – we as parents just need to encourage that kind of play!

Written by Chris Molnar, a work-at-home Dad who owns a baby site and has plenty of
experience finding play opportunities for his two daughters. In his own “play” time, Chris
enjoys reading on the patio, walking with his youngest daughter in the Ergobaby, and this
past winter, cross-country skiing – sans baby carrier.

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Drawing is just drawing.

Mark making is  just mark making.

Sometimes it is just us that doesn’t have the inspiration to gently lead or suggest them into a new direction. Do you have days like that?

MaryLea of Pink and Green Mama shared on Raising Playful Tots that it is just fine for our children to be doing the same drawings over and over again. You’ll have to listen to hear what our children have been fixated on. If I have the same materials around and same me then I need to find some new inspiration to do so I help them veer off  and try something new.

Sometimes we need to look at something we commonly do and find another way of doing it. That even means switching the word ‘writing’ for the better name ‘mark making’. After all that’s what they are doing- mark making. Writing leads me down the path of doing the letters or the writing right. Making a mark gives me the subtle difference that stops me as the parent from expecting too much and allowing for creativity. It allows me to let them experience. If you prefer writing and don’t have this as a problem; Excellent.  I hope it’s helped someone else.

These are new ideas to me that I’ve found recently that really looked good for my boys. I’m sharing them here.

New ways with the same thing

Vertical writing with window crayons :: I can teach my child

Tunnel books :: Teach Kids Art

10 amazing writing activities :: Imagination Soup

Creating comics with kids :: Nurture store

Leftover punched letters instead of stencils ::  Club CK

Make it yourself

Folded paper tutorial :: Papervine

Decorating their own journal book :: Duck Duck Octopus

Make your own card game with natural objects :: 5 Orange potatoes

For the bigger brothers and sisters of the under 5s

The family writing club: SouleMama

Watercolour and black pen art doodles :: Maisar Mendonca

There’s a time to keep introducing new play activities and a time for repetition of skills. Evaluating where we are with each child and adjusting will make for a happier child and you. Keeping mark making fun and an experience will reap its own rewards. Who said mark making had to be all about the alphabet!

What fun ways do you use to keep writing fun? Would love to see your link or ideas in the comments
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