Fairy Tea Party 2018

Even though I have retired from StrongStart there are some activities that I love and will continue.

One is the Fairy Tea Party.

All set up.

Greeting the little fairies when they arrived.

Fairy Maureen explained how many doors were hidden around the park.

She gave each child a pipe cleaner with a bell tied to it.

When they find a door, beside it is a jar of beads, they take one bead and thread it on their pipe cleaner.

That way they can keep count of how many doors they found.

She also asked them to gently ring the bell beside each door to say thanks to the fairies for the gift.

Off they went running, searching and having fun.

Finding a door, collecting their bead and stringing it on.

Then off again.

After finding all the doors they went to find Fairy Maureen for tea.

Yum, fairy cakes and tea.

It was a wet morning but the fairies and gnomes didn't mind.

A Shopping Experience

A month or so ago my daughter sent me this video.

It was a quiet time in that grocery store so the Little One had time and space to push her shopping cart around to help mom.

I suggested, to my daughter, that the next time they go she create a shopping list for the Little One to follow.

And this is how it went.

At just under the age of 2 she is learning the different departments in a grocery store.

 She is learning how to read a list,

and check it off when she finds an item.

She is learning how to care for each item.  That they can be fragile.

She is increasing her vocabulary, her knowledge and understanding of the world she lives in.

This experience takes just a bit of preparation before hand.  

It also takes patience and a bit longer time shopping for the parent.

But it offers your child so much....

 knowledge (building on what she knows about her food), 

structure (that it takes some planning to shop), 

responsibility (if we want to eat we have to gather our food), and 

understanding of belonging (we each have our roles)

to a family.