Mommy Monday: getting toddlers to eat leftovers- the ice cube tray

I'm sure I'm not the only parent with kids who don't like leftovers. And to be honest, I understand- I remember hating leftovers as a kid. My least favorite meals were when my mom would announce that it was "clean out the fridge day" and she would pull out all the different little leftover things from earlier in the week, sandwich bread, produce that needed to be eaten before it went bad, etc, and told us to take what we wanted. You would think that would be fun to pick different things to eat... But no, I thought it was the worst.

So imagine my surprise when my toddlers had the same reaction to my same meal plan! They really do not like having the same thing twice in one week. Unless it is hot dogs. But those are never left over (because why would you leave hot dogs uneaten?). I digress...

Last week I got off my normal meal plan routine because one of the girls was sick. So I got to the end of the week and realized I had a half-eaten bag of spinach, two untouched bell peppers, and some other random things that I was going to have to throw away soon. Also I had been too tired to prepare anything for dinner before I left for work (yeah OK I guess that was the bigger problem). So I decided to try something I had been meaning to do for a while: 

That's right folks, it's an ice cube tray! Luckily I had just emptied three trays of ice and had the trays sitting clean and empty on my counter already. I had seen this idea for a party a long time ago on Pinterest:

It was one of those ideas that I thought, "yeah, that would be really cute if I had hours to sit and chop stuff up and arrange into cute and colorful trays for my kids' party... *sigh*", pinned, and moved on. But if all I'm doing is cleaning out the fridge with random bits and pieces, I figured why not?!?

It was actually a lot of fun to put together. The girls loved helping me pull out anything and everything from the fridge and pantry, and picking out where to put each item on their tray. By the time we finished (took us about 15 minutes total to get them ready) they couldn't wait to dig in! The whole time we were eating they would look around their tray, giggle with excitement, and pick a new item to stuff in their mouth. It was hilarious!

In case you're interested, these are the things that ended up going in our trays: banana slices, spinach leaves, tortilla, cheerios, frozen peas, frozen blueberries, goldfish crackers, canned corn, canned black beans, sliced deli ham, mixed nuts, sweet potato, shredded cheese, yellow bell pepper, and hot dog. Both girls finished most of their dinner.

I think we will be doing this again soon- the girls are still talking about it several days later! What do you do to get your kids to eat leftovers? Share your ideas in the comments!

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Teacher Tuesday: organizing recordings

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday! Today I want to talk about how I keep up with all the different recordings I use in my classes throughout the year. There are all the CD's from the district textbook series, tried-and-true CD's I have for movement and other lessons, songs for musical games, recordings of my piano accompaniments for choir and more! Some I use for more than one lesson in more than one grade level, others I only use occasionally, and some I use every year for one very specific lesson.

There are many different ways to organize recordings as a music teacher, but I think the best way to keep track of all the different recordings from multiple sources is to store them digitally and keep all the sound files in one central location (such as iTunes). Over the years I have found some excellent recordings that I still use that are on cassettes, CD's, email attachments, and YouTube videos. It is impossible to keep track of that many different sources and remember where you have what. By converting everything to a digital sound file and storing them all in one place, you at least know where to look when you need to find that one song!

Once you get everything into one centralized, digital location, how you choose to organize your tracks will depend on how you teach and how your brain works. After going through several different organizational systems in iTunes over the last few years, this is the one that seems to work best for me, but you will need to think through and try out some different systems to find the one that best fits your needs.

Basically, I have found that I usually don't have a problem remembering what the track is that I need when I am planning. My main need is having the tracks organized for the day's lessons so that I don't have to hunt for the right track in between (or in the middle of) classes. I use playlists within iTunes that look like this:

Basically I have an ever-evolving playlist for every class I teach. There is one for each grade level, one for each choir, and a few extras for special events (music in our schools month, kindergarten graduation/celebration, townwide/all-district ensemble etc). I also keep one list called "party", where I keep any track I find that works well for music games. Any time the occasion arises, it is nice to have a variety of upbeat songs to choose from that I know will be appropriate. Often I'll let a student choose from the list themselves!

For each class playlist, I store only the tracks I currently need for the lesson I am teaching that day. When the tracks I need change for that class, I delete the old ones and add the new ones in by searching in my master music list in iTunes.

You can probably tell what we are working on in 3rd grade right now! Usually there are only 2 or 3 tracks at most in a class playlist, and I can put the tracks in the order that I will need them in the lesson so I don't have to search for the right track in the middle of class.

I have been using this system for the last 2-3 years and have found that this is what works for me. I know others like to tag different tracks with the concepts they can teach (in playlists or something else), or keep all the tracks for a particular unit in one playlist that doesn't change.

How do you keep track of all of the recordings you need for your music classes? Tell me your ideas in the comments!

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Mommy Monday: DIY toddler toys- busy box

Today I want to share something I made for my 2-year-old kids (and several other friends of similar age) a while back. My hope is to communicate that a) busy parents with tight budgets and schedules can make legitimately fun, developmentally appropriate, Pinterest worthy playthings for their children, b) sometimes the stuff you can make for them is better than the toys you can buy, and c) you don't have to be a gifted crafter to do this stuff.

I will admit that creative projects like this are really fun for me. I had seen the idea of "busy bags" on Pinterest with tons of cute, simple ideas to keep toddlers busy/happy/quiet, and knew I wanted to do something like that for my own children. When two friends with kids around the same age as my twins announced they were having a baby, I knew this would be a perfect gift to make for their toddlers to keep them occupied while they deal with the baby.

Tip 1: Plan to make the same thing for several people at once

I realized quickly that the supplies you generally need for these kinds of projects are most cost-effective and readily-available in larger quantities than you would ever need to make just one. For me, having two other families to give to was a good opportunity. I've also heard of having a busy bag exchange, just like a cookie exchange, where each participant makes the same thing for the number of families participating and walks away with a whole assortment of activities from each person.

Without further ado, I present my "busy box":

That's right, folks. I stuck a piece of construction paper on the lid of an old shoebox. I used only shoeboxes that had the lid attached to the bottom of the box in some way. I figured the fewer parts to find on a cluttered floor the better. I wrote the child's name on each one- it makes it so much more special for the child when they see their own name on it!

Most of the ideas online called these "busy bags", and the items were kept in ziploc bags. I decided I wanted something a little more special and neat-looking than a see-through bag- so far I am happy with my choice. The box is also easier than a ziploc for toddlers to close themselves.

Tip 2: Put all the materials in one, easy-to-open-and-store container

Inside the busy box:

Now let's talk about the goodies inside! I looked at a lot of ideas on Pinterest and blogs and loved many of them, but was hoping to get more bang for my buck than most of the ones I saw online- I wanted something that my kids could creatively use for a variety of activities, not just one.

Tip 3: Make things that can be used in multiple ways

First we have the felt pockets:

I found some sheets of felt on sale and got six colors (for whatever reason the purple looks like dark blue in the pictures... sorry about that). I am NOT a sewer, but I was able to sew a straight line on each side with my mother's sewing machine to create a pocket in which to sort items. I also drew around the outside of shapes and letters that I cut out of the same felt and drew around them with a sharpie on the front of each pocket to create something like a puzzle.

The rest of the materials are smaller pieces- pom-pom balls, craft sticks, and felt cutouts- all in the same colors as the felt pockets.

The ideas kind of grew as I was putting everything together- I had not thought of putting the shapes and letters that I had in the cutouts on the craft sticks until I had finished everything else and was testing out different ways to play with them. I have 3 sticks in each color- one with the corresponding letter, one with the shape, and one blank. There are also 3 balls in each color.

Tip 4: Include kid-friendly directions 

The last thing I have in the box is a set of laminated cards with pictures of the different ways the items can be combined to make different games. I probably wouldn't have done this if I was just making it for my own kids, but since I was making them for friends as well I decided it would be a good idea to share some of the ideas I had for how to use what I had put together. Obviously part of the point is to just allow kids to explore and use the items creatively however they want, but the direction cards actually seem to make it feel more like a "real game" for my children- they like to pick out one of the cards and seem to think of it like a challenge. Again for mostly for my friends, I also wrote out directions for each idea on the back so that the parent could explain to the kids how to use it if they wanted.

So in all, I bought 6 pieces of felt, a set of pom-pom balls, and a set of craft sticks. I drew the shapes and letters on the sticks and pockets, sewed the pockets, took pictures of everything and made the direction cards on the computer to print, and cut out the shapes and letters. Pretty low-cost and not too difficult!

What are your favorite materials to have on hand for toddlers to play with? Have you made any of these busy bags? Leave your ideas in the comments- I'd love to hear them!

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Teacher Tuesday: teacher toolbox

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday!

Have you seen these teacher toolboxes floating around Pinterest? I saw a pin like this one last spring and knew my teacher's desk needed one of these:

There are quite a few posts on various teacher blogs about how they fancied theirs up, but basically it is made from a toolbox that you can get at Lowe's, Home Depot, and a few other stores and adding some labels to each drawer. 

I went the easy route with mine. I cut out pieces of scrapbook paper to fit the size of each drawer and taped it in on the inside of the drawer. A lot of others either print or use stickers to label the drawers directly on the paper, but I wanted to be able to change the contents of my drawers without re-doing the entire label, so I wrote the contents on the outside of each drawer with a permanent marker. 

The writing doesn't come off in regular use, but if I want to change it I can scrub it off pretty easily since the drawers are made from a slick plastic. 

This thing has been an awesome addition to my desk. Besides adding some cute color to my work area, it has made it so much easier to find the things I need quickly, especially in the middle of class when I don't want to dig through a desk drawer. I have also found that it's easy for me now to send a student to grab a paperclip or band-aid and just tell them to find the correct drawer. 

Have you made one of these teacher toolboxes yet? I am really happy with mine- it is an organizational work horse for sure!

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