Studies have shown that preschool can help a child learn, increase a child’s emotional intelligence, as well as, develop social skills. However, the transition for home learning to school-based learning may be hard for some children. So how do you prepare your child for preschool?
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What Are the Perks of Having Twins?
Many people think of having twins and immediately think of the negatives. Twice the expenses at once, twice the chaos. . .But these misconceptions only tell part of the story. Many moms of twins share that there are incredible perks to being blessed with two babies at once.
Perks of Having Twins
There are many benefits of having twins that most people don’t think of. Consider these.
Double the Tax Deduction Instantly
When you have a new baby, you qualify for an additional tax deduction, but with twins, you immediately get double the tax deduction! That can make quite a difference on your yearly tax return and can help pay for some of the extra expenses twins incur.
One Pregnancy—Two Babies
If you have easy pregnancies, you likely won’t care about this perk. However, for women who struggle through pregnancy with morning sickness and discomforts, this can be a true joy. One pregnancy, but two babies! If you only want two children, you could reap all the rewards of having two kids but only struggle through one pregnancy. Yes to that!
Built-In Friends
My cousin has twins, and she said the first year was extremely difficult. After that, though, she felt that she was luckier than other moms because her twin sons each had built-in playmates in one another. While many kids when they’re young rely on their parents to keep them entertained, she said her boys did that for one another. She enjoyed watching their “twin language” develop and the way they played with each other for hours. No play dates required.
Share Clothes
If your twins are the same sex, they can share clothes. This gives them twice the wardrobe at the same price as buying clothes for singletons.
Easier Homework Time
When you think of the perks of having twins, you likely don’t think of homework time. Yet, if your twins are in the same class and have the same teacher in elementary school, they both have the same assignments due. Rather than looking at two or three different sets of homework as you would if you were mom to two singletons, the twins will get the same homework, making your job as homework assistant easier.
Discounts for Twins
Did you know if you have twins you can get discounts at a surprising number of places? My cousin said that she received discounts on daycare when she registered her twins. A quick search on the web shows that many, many companies offer parents of twins discounts for all sorts of items from mattresses, to formula, to sleeping pods. The list goes on and on.
Sure, you’ll be paying more out of pocket when you make a purchase times two, but you may save more overall compared to buying twice with singletons because you get a discount.
Final Thoughts
While it is true that by having twins you can face double the expense at one time, there are also many perks of having twins that save you money and time.
Read More
Tips for Approaching Parents of Twins
What I Love Most about Having Twins
Tips on Buying Gifts for Twins
Tips for Saving Money when you Have Children
Every parent knows how incredibly rewarding it is to see their little ones grow up. In this day and age, it’s also important that you are able to save money though. If you don’t then you may not be able to do the things you want with your kids or you may find that you are not able to give them the support they need when going on school trips or other outings.
10 Ways to Purge Toys in Your Kids Room Today
Has your child ever sat in the middle of a room full of toys, looked you straight in the eyes, and whined, “I’m bored!”
Are there more dolls and plastic dinosaurs in your kids’ closets than there are clothes?
When your house is so overrun with toys that the only explanation is they’re multiplying in the middle of the night, then it’s time to purge toys and reclaim your home!
Colloidal Oatmeal Shampoo for Dogs: The Ultimate Guide
When you have a dog, you get used to finding dog hair everywhere. With some breeds, the hair even travels with you. But what you shouldn’t get used to is finding dandruff in your dog’s coat.
How to Help Your Teen Create Healthy Sleep Habits
Despite needing over 9 hours of sleep a night, your teen is likely getting closer to only 7 hours, and that’s a huge problem.
Sleep deprivation in teens affects their mental health and their ability to focus on their studies. It can make them more prone to depression and anxiety.
Games that Teach Kids About Money
Let’s be honest. Hoping children learn via parent lecture is unlikely and boring. Kids don’t listen, and parents get frustrated. But there is a fun way to teach kids about things that doesn’t feel like learning—playing games. If you want to teach your kids how to behave responsibly financially, don’t lecture. Instead, play games that teach kids about money.
Classic Board Games That Teach Kids About Money
My favorite place to start when using games to teach about money are the classic games. You know, the ones we grew up playing.
Monopoly
This classic game teaches your kid the value of location, location, location when buying land. It also teaches kids about the importance of having rental income. And of course, your kids learn about property taxes, stocks, and income.
The only drawback to this game (and some don’t see it as a drawback) is that it can take a long time to play, upwards of an hour or longer.
Life
In The Game of Life, kids choose whether to go to college or go right to work. They also learn about the importance of insurance and avoiding loans. The stock market also plays a role in the game.
One thing I find confusing is that the more kids you have, the more money you seem to make. I haven’t found that to be true in real life!
Pay Day
In Pay Day, the board is set up like a calendar month. Players can choose to buy deals such as a pizza joint for $800. Then, later in the game, they can choose to sell it and make $12,000. Players also get bills in the mail and have to pay them. Throughout the game, players can borrow money from the bank or other players, but they need to agree on the terms.
This is a great game for teaching kids about investing and borrowing. Parents may like it because you can choose how many months to play. The more months you play, the longer the game goes.
Newer Board Games That Teach Kids about Money
Beyond the classic games mentioned above, there are several new board games that teach kids about money.
Cashflow for Kids
This game was created by Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The game is suitable for kids ages 6 and older. The board is fairly simple. Kids land on a green or red space or a dollar sign. When they land on a green space, something positive happens to their financial situation. For instance, they can choose to buy a stock and get passive income. If they land on a red, they have to pay an expense. The dollar sign gives them a payday, and this is also when they can get their passive income.
While the board is simple, this game is great for teaching kids about positive, long-term uses of your money and negatives uses of it.
The Allowance Game
Designed for ages 5 to 10, The Allowance Game teaches kids about earning and spending money as they travel around a board. They might spend money for movie tickets and earn money for losing a tooth. They can also put their money in the bank and earn interest.
The money that is used resembles real United States money, so it’s easy for young kids to learn how to differentiate the different bills and coins, too.
Act Your Wage Game
Followers of Dave Ramsey will love the Act Your Wage Game, especially if you’d like to easily teach your children Ramsey’s Baby Steps. When you play the game, you’re given a life situation—how much you make per year and if you’re married or not as well as basic bills such as food and utilities. You also draw debt cards.
You follow Ramsey’s Baby Steps to get yourself out of debt and in a financially secure position. Along the way, you’ll fill envelopes so you can spend cash rather than using credit.
Online Games
You can also find games that teach kids about money by going online.
Rich Kid Smart Kid
The Rich Kid Smart Kid site (from the makers of the board game Cashflow for Kids) has several mini-games including:
- Jesse’s Ice Cream Stand
- Reno’s Debt Dilemma
- Ima’s Pay Yourself 1st
- Jesse’s Big Change
These microgames teach kids entrepreneurship, debt management, and how to start an emergency fund.
Peter Pig’s Money Counter
Peter Pig’s Money Counter is ideal for 5 to 8-year olds who are learning to add and subtract money. Kids need to put the money in different jars, and then they can buy things such as clothes for the pig. By doing the various activities, kids learn how to add and subtract money.
Financial Football
Financial Football taps into some kids’ love of the NFL to help teach them about finances. The game has three different levels:
- Rookie (ages 11-14)
- Pro (ages 14-18)
- Hall of Fame (ages 18+)
To go down the football field, players must answer financial questions. This game was created by VISA in conjunction with Drew Brees, who created several of the questions in the game.
If you homeschool, you can dig even deeper with this game, as there are also lesson plans and pre and post-tests available.
The Playoff
The Playoff is designed for kids ages 14+. In this immersive game, you choose between two vloggers, Alex and Jess. You manage their finances and deal with unexpected events like getting robbed all while trying to develop a video in just three days. Whoever ends the game with the most money wins.
Just like Financial Football, this game has lesson plans, so it could be used in schools or if you homeschool.
Final Thoughts
Teaching your kids about money is challenging. Sure, they’ll watch how you handle your money, but they may need more instruction for how to handle their money wisely. Luckily, there are many games that teach kids about money. Your kids can learn and face natural consequences through the game before they do so in real life. Then, when they’re teens and young adults, they hopefully will know how to manage money responsibly.
Encourage Toddler Play without Breaking the Bank
The toddler years from one to three are a time of tremendous growth. Kids learn to walk, run, and explore their worlds. They are curious, and both their minds and bodies are developing rapidly. As a parent, giving your children safe ways to play and explore is important to their development. At this age, you can find plenty of frugal ways to encourage toddler play without breaking the bank.
Low-Cost Supplies
There are so many low-cost supplies that you can stock your shelves with that will keep your child happy for hours.
Play-Doh
For less than $5, you can pick up a small set of Play-Doh for your toddler. Play-Doh has definitely gotten fancier since my kids were toddlers. Now you can buy Play-Doh with glitter in it and in a large variety of color. Kids are usually happy playing with just Play-Doh, but if you want to spend a bit more, you can buy Play-Doh toys like a hair dresser shop or a gravel construction yard, for example. You can also try your hand at making homemade playdough.
Finger Paint
If you have $8, you can buy a 6 pack of finger paint that will provide your child with artistic and sensory expression. All of my children loved to finger paint when they were toddlers, but my middle child easily wanted to finger paint several times a week. She still enjoys art, and I attribute it to all the time she spent finger painting when she was young.
Bubbles
This is likely the best way to encourage toddler play without breaking the bank. Bubbles are ridiculously cheap, less than $1 for a small bottle, and yet your child can likely use them for at least a month. He can experiment with how hard to blow to form the bubble or run and try to get the bubble to form. Even better, mom or dad can blow bubbles while your toddler tries to catch them without popping them or runs through them.
Sidewalk Chalk
Sidewalk chalk is yet another way to let your little artist express herself. You can get a box of 48 pieces of chunky chalk (perfect for little hands) for around $5. These will last all summer, and your sidewalk or driveway is the perfect canvas.
Bath Supplies
After finger painting, my younger two kids’ favorite activity was taking a bath. They loved to have the tub filled with bubbles to play in. When the bubbles dissipated, they liked to play with their bath toys. They could easily spend 45 minutes to an hour in the tub. (Just make sure a parent stays in the room with them.) You could buy the bubbles and a few toys for your kids for less than $20. My girls’ favorite bath activity was using bath crayons to draw on the tub walls.
Doctor Kit
Many toddlers like playing doctor. They take the stethoscope to your chest to check your breathing, they check your reflexes, and then they give you their diagnosis. They also love it when you give them an exam. These kits are a bit more expensive, around $20, but your child will likely use them quite a bit. (We bought ours used at a garage sale for $1, which is another great way to save money).
Make It Yourself
There are other ways to encourage toddler play without breaking the bank. Namely, instead of buying something, make it yourself!
Calm/Glitter Bottles
Many toddlers are fascinated with calm/glitter bottles and can spend a surprising amount of time tipping them from side to side. Making a calm bottle is not difficult; there are plenty of tutorials online.
Once you buy the ingredients, you likely have enough to make several bottles. Once your child tires of one, make a new one in a different color with different items inside. Even though this tutorial only had glitter, I’ve seen calm bottles filled with a variety of items like large stars to give them some more visual appeal.
Bowling Set
Another idea for outdoor fun is to make a toddler bowling set. You’ll need some empty water bottles and a ball. Your toddler can practice knocking them down. He’ll love it if you play with him.
The nice thing about a homemade bowling set is not only that it’s frugal, but if one bowling pin gets damaged, it’s easy to replace.
https://youtu.be/PHm4jK6x_sg
Sensory Play
There are a host of reasons why sensory play is beneficial for kids, not the least of which is that it helps develop connections in the brain and encourages imaginative play.
Probably the easiest one is to buy a can of shaving cream. When my kids were about three, I’d put a light layer of shaving cream on a cookie sheet, and they practiced writing their letters in the shaving cream. They loved the sensation, and they were learning at the same time.
Another less messy way to do this is to put a bit of shaving cream and a drop or two of dye in a gallon plastic freezer bag. (Don’t fill it too much!) Then kids can write their letters in the cream, but they do so on top of the bag so they still get sensory input, but there’s no mess for parents to clean up.
There are plenty of sensory play ideas online.
Don’t Forget the Books!
While it’s very important to encourage play in your toddlers, don’t forget to also read aloud to your child daily, the more the better. The stories that you read aloud to your child now will eventually lead to imaginative play later.
I read aloud to my children frequently, and when my girls were in first and second grade, we read the entire Little House on the Prairie series. They had the discipline to sit through those books because they were used to being read to. For the next few years, much of their imaginative play was based on what they learned through those books.
Final Thoughts
Children under the age of three experience a phenomenal amount of brain and body growth in these important years. Starting now, make sure to give your child plenty of safe opportunities to play and learn.
Free Online Games to Teach Kids about the Environment
If you’re a mom of kids under 12, you know that one of the best ways to teach kids so that they actually remember information is to play games. Games are fun, so kids are eager to play, not knowing (or caring) that they’re actually learning something. If you have science minded kids, there are many free online games to teach kids about the environment.
Free Online Games to Teach Kids about the Environment
There are so many games and so many ways you can teach kids about the environment!
Games for Ages 4 to 7
Even your little children can learn about the environment with these fun games.
Environmental Protection Agency
Choose one of three games for ages 4 to 7 to teach them about air pollution and what the various colors mean—green day, red day, etc.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
There are many, many games on the Kids Environment Kids Health page from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. These games are for kids in 1st to 4th grade. The free online games to teach kids about the environment include:
Climates of the World
Kids match children in a variety of clothes with the climate and country that they live in.
Matching Game
In one of the matching games, kids can match bird songs with the birds that make them.
Do check this site out as there is so much here young kids would like include many different games, jokes, riddles, and songs.
Energy Star
Calling all Dr. Seuss fans! The Energy Star website has a fun game called Join the Lorax. Games include coloring the Lorax characters, completing a word search, and a picture search for energy efficient items.
Games for Ages 8 to 12
SciJinks
The SciJinks site has many different games for kids from grades 3 to 7. This site has 23 games including a hurricane simulator and a tornado simulator (kids will probably enjoy seeing the flying cow spinning around when the tornado hits). Game topics include:
- Weather,
- Hurricanes and Storms,
- Clouds, Water, and Ice,
- Tides and Oceans,
- Atmosphere,
- Seasons,
- Satellites and Technology,
- Space Weather
EPA
For those who prefer more scholarly free games to teach kids about the environment, the EPA has an ozone science crossword puzzle. This puzzle would be perfect for 5th to 7th graders. There are 17 clues and 17 answers to choose from.
Energy Kids
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has all sorts of activities for kids on the part of their website called Energy Kids.
They have fun energy-related riddles such as, “How do energy-conscious people feel about wind power? Answer—they’re blown away.” When my son was in 3rd grade, he would have loved riddles like this.
They also have energy slang terms as well as puzzles (Sudoko, slider puzzles, crosswords and word searches).
For students who love participating in science fairs, the site has science fair experiment ideas for all ages, K-12.
Lastly, the site has suggestions for energy-based field trips as well as a brief description of each site.
NASA Science
For your kids in grades 6-9, Nasa Science has a game to teach your kids about energy flow called Go with the Flow. Kids get to experiment with how salt and heat affect the weather and the water currents.
If your child is interested in learning about space weather, there is also a game for that on the site called Shields Up!
Smithsonian Science Education Center
If you want to teach your kids about the environment, the Smithsonian Science Education Center site has games for kids in grades 3 to 6.
In the game Habitats, children are given a picture of a habitat (habitats range from desert, coral reef, jungle and marsh.) They then can choose from images of three animals to decide what animal belongs in that particular habitat.
Similarly, they also have a game, Home on the Range, that corresponds with 2nd grade learning standards. Kids try to find animals and plants that exist in certain habitats around the United States. If they don’t know the answer, they can click on each animal or plant that is a possible answer and read more about that particular one.
Smokey for Kids
Teach your kids about the dangers of wild fires with the Smokey for Kids site. Not only do kids learn how to prevent wildfires, but they also can play games to reinforce what they learn. Kids might find it especially fun to play the Storymaker Game. They first fill out quite a bit of information personalized to them, and then a story is created using that information.
Water Sense
In the Water Sense game, created by the EPA, lead the water drop through a maze, being careful to avoid water wasters. This game is great for late elementary and early middle school students.
Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute
In the Migration Game, students answer questions about migration. Each question that they answer correctly gets Wanda the Wood Thrush closer to her summer home in Maryland from her winter home in Costa Rica.
Sample multiple choice questions include, “When do Wood Thrushes fly when they are migrating?” and “How long does it take a Wood Thrush to migrate from Costa Rica to Maryland?”
Recycle City
Another site created by the EPA, Recycle City offers two activities for kids. First, there is the Recycle City Challenge, where kids can answer questions about actions people can take to reduce waste and energy use. They can earn points and jump on the leader board.
They can also play the Dumptown Game. The player is in charge of Dumptown and must start programs to reduce waste and encourage recycling. Players will be able to see the financial differences based on the programs they implement.
Final Thoughts
Most kids love playing games, all the better if they’re electronic games. Why not use these free online games to teach kids about the environment to both entertain and educate your children? I’m guessing your kids, if they’re like mine, would be happy to try out these games and learn new jokes and riddles to add to their repertoire.
7 Beautiful Outfits That Your Baby Girl Will Love
If you’re the proud parent of a brand-new baby girl, you’re probably excited to purchase a few adorable outfits.
From sweet accessories to darling ensembles, there’s no shortage of beautiful outfits available for your little princess.
Read on for seven adorable outfit ideas your baby girl (and you) will adore.