When you want to teach a young child big ideas about the world, little stories are often the most effective way. Pelle’s New Suit tells how a growing boy uses the wool of his lamb for a new suit.

Last week, in my post about basic weaving with children, I mentioned the book Pelle’s New Suit. I love this book so much for children that I want to come back to it and tell you more. We’ve been celebrating lambing season this month with wool crafts for children: felted wool ball, spool knitting, and basic weaving. I want to make that connection between the life of a sheep and the natural materials we use in our lives. Reading the story of Pelle’s New Suit to my children was one of the ways I helped them understand where wool comes from and why we value sheep so much.

Before I had children, I recall a friend telling me a story about his daughter’s dawning realization of her connections with the world around her. Like many very young children, she had story books that told about animals and she had visited animals. One of her favorite animals was the chicken. One night, when she asked what they were eating for dinner, her father said, “Chicken.” “Oh,” she said, “’Chicken’ sounds just like ‘chicken!’” As he told me, I waited for the lesson when he told her the rest of the story. He didn’t. “You didn’t tell her at all?” I asked. No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to upset her. Maybe not now, but imagine her upset when she realized the truth.

I considered this a lesson is parenting. I decided that I would always make an effort to help my children understand the connections among things—like fluffy chickens in a petting zoo and dinner on a plate. The right time to talk about connections is when the child brings it up. In my family, we talk about the origins of different foods, fibers, and the other stuff around us. I have always wanted my children to have, in their own developmentally appropriate way, the tools to make their own decisions about their actions.

When I first read Pelle’s New Suit, when my first child was not quite one year old, I knew this would be one of the books that would help me make those connections for her. Both of my children know the story well. We read it often. Even now, as they are older, they love this book. When I asked my 12-year old where the book was so I could reread it for today, he pulled it off the shelf next to his bed.

Pelle’s Suit Grows Shorter

Pelle takes care of his lamb all by himself. His lamb’s hair grows longer as his own suit grows shorter. Step by step Pelle makes his new suit happen, through sheering to carding to spinning to dying to weaving to tailoring. Pelle trades his help for that of the adults who have the skills to create his suit. In the end, we see the bigger boy in the bigger suit with his bigger lamb.

Simply and clearly the process of creating clothing unfolds. This is such a sweet story of an independent child as part of his community.

Pelle’s New Suit is 101 years old. It was originally published in Sweden in 1912 by Elsa Beskow. For over 50 years she created beautifully gentle illustrations of adventurous and strong children. Her books are still quite popular in Waldorf education, and they are still in print in many languages. I’m not the only parent for whom these stories resonate.

Little Black Sheep Puppet

With a family favorite story, it’s fun to have props. When my children were very young, we often gathered up particular toys to listen to or act out stories. The moose joined us for Mooses Come Walking and the mouse joined us for Sugar Mouse Cake.

At bynature.ca we carry puppets of all sizes because children use characters like these to tell the stories that help them understand their world as their world grows. In case you want to invite Pelle and his lamb into your library, you might be interested in the little black sheep puppet as well.

Happy storytelling.

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Kids love making things, exploring and transforming stuff with their hands. I like giving my children crafts with growth potential, so there is another step to take if they want it. Start with a small woven mat, and your child may want to keep weaving until you have a blanket, a wall hanging, and a whole set of mats.

Weaving, moving one thread up and down through another thread, can help a child learn basic mathematical skills, fine motor control, dexterity, and concentration. And, creating a beautiful product from quality materials builds self-confidence and gives your child a sense of accomplishment.

It’s lambing season. We’re celebrating by focusing on the wool that lambs and sheep give us. We often talk about wool as a useful fiber for cloth diapering, but we love wool for many other household uses. Wool feels good in the hands. As children develop their skills, we like knowing that they are doing so using natural fibers. If you would like to go back and try other crafts with your children, we’ve shared ideas for felting wool balls and spool knitting over the past couple of weeks.

Start with a Loom

You can build a simple tapestry loom with a frame and pegs at the top and bottom. You can make it any size and shape your materials allow. That might be a future project, though. For those just starting out, we sell a basic 12-peg wooden loom that both children and adults will enjoy using.

Need

• Loom
• Wool yarn
• String for warp
• Needle or shuttle

How Weaving Works

Basic weaving has warp and weft. You use string up and down between the top and bottom pegs of the loom to create the warp. This provides the basic structure of your woven piece. You can weave so the warp is covered or so that it shows. The main yarn that gives your weaving color and weight is the weft. Weft means woven (weaved > wef-ed > weft). This is the thread or yarn that is woven through the strings of the warp.

The simplest way to start weaving is to use a needle. Using a fine point helps your child navigate up over one string and down under the next while the fine needle is small enough that they can easily see their progress as they weave.

At the end of each row, you can press down the yarn you’ve just woven through the strings (called beating the weft), or you can leave the fabric less dense and let the warp show. With a child, I like to create one piece by the simplest method then add a new technique for the next piece. I recommend starting with a looser woven piece. This is also much quicker to make, and an easy win can be motivation to put in more time for the next piece.

When your child is finished weaving on the basic loom, the piece should hold together when you take it off the pegs. You may need to push the weft around a bit to even out the rows.

How Many Doll Blankets Do You Need?

If your child comes to enjoy weaving, you may end up with a lot of doll blankets, purses, and coasters. As my children started producing more and more little pieces of work, I steered them toward using those small pieces to produce bigger pieces.

Make a Pillow. If your child weaves six pieces on the small wooden loom, each approximately 6.5″ x 10″ (depending on how tight they pull as they are weaving), you can sew those together to create one 20″ x 20″ piece, which is perfect for a throw pillow. If you either sew that piece to the front of an existing pillow or make a new pillow with some sturdy fabric on the back then fill it with a 20″ x 20″ pillow form, you have a beautiful object that you can use around the house. You give your child the experience of creating a complete object. What a great gift that would be for grandma. My family still uses pillows made by my children years ago. I love that constant reminder.

Make a Blanket. If your child loves weaving even after you have plenty of pillows, move on to making blankets. My daughter kept making new projects until she found her level at the size of baby blankets. Just be open to using all of the little pieces of weaving in a bigger project of some kind.

Very Basic Weaving. Did you weave potholders as a child? I did. I learned weaving with cotton loops on a square potholder loom. The difference between the wooden peg loom and the potholder loom is in the weft. For potholders, single loops are the weft for each separate row; for the small tapestry loom, one continuous piece of yarn is your weft row after row. We carry the traditional potholder loom and extra cotton weaving loops because we think your child might enjoy basic weaving as a confidence-building experience.

More Advanced Weaving. If you have kids who like to experiment, and who doesn’t, increase the challenge as they learn weaving.

• Weave with thread. Try doing the same kind of piece on a tiny loom.
• Build a giant loom. See how big you can go. Weave a whole blanket all at once rather than creating a patchwork of smaller pieces.
• Draw with yarn. Learn how to use the weft and the warp to create geometric shapes then organic shapes then images.
• Learn about weaving. This would be a great opportunity to look at weaving in a museum or gallery. Read storybooks about weaving. I love Elsa Beskow’s Pelle’s New Suit, in which a young shepherd uses his lamb’s wool to have a new suit made, and Charles Blood’s The Goat in the Rug, which tells the story of Navajo weaving from a goat’s point of view. Both books tell stories that engage a child in process from animal through to the final product.

The more your child connects what they are learning with the world around them, the better. Weaving holds a world of such potential expression, whether they weave a story in tapestry or just make a potholder.

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Teaching knitting to very young children not only gives them a way to busy the hands so the mind can calm, it opens them to creating. They aren’t just expressing as they do in so many arts and crafts. Teaching a child to knit can be an exciting experience for them as they see their simple actions produce a fabric. Knitting is transformation.

We’re continuing our celebration of lambing season, following last week’s instructions for making felted wool balls.

The Right Age to Start Knitting

The right age to start depends on the child. I was 3 years old when I started knitting with needles, and I also spent years knitting cords on a knitting spool. I saw my mother knitting every day, and I wanted to knit as well. I waited until my children asked to knit, and they did ask when they saw both my husband and me knitting. We started by making our own needles. Now, many days during homeschool my 15-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and I are all knitting while we read to one another. On their own, my children plan and carry out knitting projects, asking for help when they need new skills to create what they can imagine.

There isn’t a right age. Three years old worked for me; eight years old might be better for someone else. The best time to start is when your child asks to knit. If you push, no matter what age your child is, you might meet resistance.

Spool Knitting for Beginners

A lot of parents start teaching knitting—and hand-eye coordination—through finger knitting. Start with finger knitting, knitting spool, or big homemade needles. They are all quite different experiences, and you could try them all to see which your child likes.

I like the simplicity of a knitting spool, and I love how quickly a child will see progress.

A knitting spool is sometimes called a knitting Nancy or a knitting mushroom. They are called spools because they were made from empty wooden thread spools with nails around one end. My first knitting spool was one of my grandmother’s old thread spools.

Now, you can buy knitting spools from a small, 4-pin spool for a child to a plastic hoop with dozens of pins and a hand crank. We’ll keep this simple. We carry a wooden knitting spool with 4 metal pins and an all-wood knitting spool with 6 pins.

Choosing wool. A soft, 100% wool yarn is perfect for the beginning knitter. Worsted or sport weight works well as the knitter learns to pull the yarn over the pins. I love single-ply wool, but I find that it pulls apart easily in children’s projects. To avoid that frustration, I prefer multi-ply wool for children. I also find that beginning knitters tend to choose variegated yarn. It gives a bit of color variety. If that makes the difference in keeping their interest, great.

Need:

• Knitting spool
• Wool
• Pick or crochet hook (or just use fingers)

Spools come with simple instructions to get you started. If you make your own spool, you can watch basic instructions.

All of That Wool Cord!

If your child gets interested in knitting 4-stitch cord with the knitting spool, you might end up with bundles of cord and a need for a new project. I have a few ideas.

Edging. Sew your child’s cord to the edge of a favorite sweater. They will probably be very proud of their contribution to the sweater.

Weaving. You could move on from knitting to weaving, and weaving with cord makes those early weaving efforts quickly satisfying.

Knitting, again. If you use giant needles—giant, as in the size of broom handles—you can knit with cord. My son likes to do this. It amuses him. He just makes scarves.

I hope knitting gives your children the kind of stress-relieving outlet for expression that it has for my children.

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Halfway between the first day of winter and the first day of spring is the traditional beginning of lambing season, though new sheep might actually be born anytime from December through May. To celebrate sheep, lambs, and the beautiful wool they give us, we are sharing several weeks of wool crafts you can do with your children.

Felted Wool Balls

Wool Dryer Balls have become a very popular way to add natural scent and quicker drying agitation to machine drying cloth diapers, linens, or any clothing. You can easily make these dryer balls yourself the hard way, the easy way, or the super easy way.

Wool Balls the Hard Way

Actually, the hard way isn’t that hard. If you have seen felted wool figures and wished you could learn to do that, too, wool balls are a perfect way to start your wool felting adventure.

This method is certainly easy enough to do with children, though you may want to start with smaller wool beads.

Need:

• Wool roving
• Detergent
• Hot water
• Needle felting needles
• Needle felt mat
• Bowl
• Towel

Wool roving comes in a big variety of beautiful colors. Some people use a lower quality wool for the center of the ball and save the colors for the outside of the ball where they will show.

Your first step is to wind the wool tight. Keep winding the roving around your ball quite tight, making an effort to keep it smooth and even. If you have made a Waldorf doll or other wool doll, you already know how to do this. When you have a ball of roving about as big as a grapefruit, you are ready to felt your dryer ball.

This is where the felting starts. You place your ball on the felting mat and start poking the ball with your felting needle. This forces the wool fibers through and around one another. You can do this by squeezing and rolling without the felting tools, but the felting won’t be as tight.

Once your ball is smooth and round, you begin felting in water. Dip the ball in a bowl of very hot water with a tiny bit of detergent, then roll the ball around in your hands. The scales on the individual fibers open in the hot water then close on other fibers as you roll the ball and it cools. The individual wool fibers hold on to one another, and you have a felted ball.

I call this the hard way, but it’s really very easy. It’s just that the other ways of making felt balls are even easier.

Felting supplies are available at craft stores.

Wool Balls the Easy Way

If you don’t want to buy felting tools, you can still felt large and small wool balls.

Need:

• 100% wool yarn
• tapestry needle
• pantyhose
• non-wool thread

Single ply wool yarn will work best, but you can use any all-wool yarn.

Start by winding the yarn around two fingers several times, then fold that yarn in half and use it as your core. Now, keep winding and keep it tight.

You don’t need to make this ball quite as big as the roving ball, though it will tighten up some. When the ball is just bigger than you want it to be, cut the yarn and use your tapestry needle to thread through the ball so it doesn’t unwind in the felting process.

At this point, you could do the wet felting above, but this is the easy version, so we’re just going to drop the balls in pantyhose. Put the first ball in the toe, then tie the pantyhose tight with thread. Drop in the next, tie off, and so on until you have a continuous sausage of wool balls.

Now, wash on hot and dry on hot. Just throw the balls in with a load of towels. Once they are dry, cut the threads and free the dryer balls.

Wool Balls the Easiest Way

Even young children can make felt balls, but it helps to keep the project short.

Need:

• Felted Balls Kit

We have a colourful wool ball kit that takes about 10 minutes to make. The short cut is to use a tennis ball as the center, wrapping the wool roving around the tennis ball. Then, wet felt and squeeze to create a colorful toy for child or pet.

This kit would make a great party craft.

Keep Going!

Vary Size. Adapt any of these methods to make smaller balls for wool beads, doll heads, or other small items. Remember to keep them larger than your small children could swallow.

Add Colour. Dye your own wool or experiment with colors you can buy.

Change Shape. Felting can be used to create flat fabrics or very elaborate sculptures

Once you see how easy it is to create your own felted wool toys, you’ll be hooked.

Image © Paulselway | Dreamstime.com

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Running around after your energetic toddler might seem like enough exercise, but you still need focused activity for full fitness. Exercising with your toddler can benefit you both.

There are several good reasons to exercise with your young child. First, you need the exercise for stamina, fitness, and stress relief. Second, your child needs it as a way to deal with all of the energy that comes with the new-found freedom of walking and running. Finally, you are creating habits for life. Canada’s Physical Activity Guidelines suggest that children need at least 90 minutes per day of activity, and adults need at least 30 minutes of activity a day, including muscle strengthening. We all need to get active to stay healthy.

Make deliberate exercise a part of your child’s routine every day, and activity will become part of the fabric of your child’s life. You are creating patterns of health and fitness both through your child’s experience and through the behavior you model.

Exercising with a toddler differs from exercising with a baby. Your toddler can stand, so your activities can be separate. Your toddler can drift away, so you need to make the activities interesting enough to keep a busy little person’s attention. Your toddler has begun to develop personal preferences, so you need to tailor activities to each child.

Tips for Toddler Exercises

• Make it developmentally appropriate. Don’t rely on memorizing anything, and be prepared to be silly.
• Keep it short. A very young child probably won’t stay interested longer than 10-15 minutes, so you might want to do your own warm up and cool down alone and the vigorous exercise together.
• Alternate bursts of activity with quieter periods. Yoga can be a great tool to help a busy toddler slow down, but some will get bored and resistant if you spend too much time on one slow activity. Try a slow-paced stretching activity or visualization exercise after a tiring activity.
• Keep it interesting. Don’t do the same routine every day. Show up with surprises to keep attention and vary the activity.
• Keep it playful. Don’t make this like work for your child. Everything is play for a very young child. Turn on the music and dance. Make it fun.

Image © Yanlev | Dreamstime.com

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Whether you are working to rediscover your lost flat abs or you just want to build enough stamina to run after your child by the time your child can run, exercising with baby sets a good pattern that prioritizes your health even when so much of your time is spent focusing on the care of others.

I found that it was difficult to do anything without my first baby participating. I remember all too well putting my months-old daughter in a bouncy seat outside the shower while she yelled at me, me saying, “Please baby please baby please baby, let me shower.”

If your baby doesn’t want to be separated from you, you can find a way to exercise and entertain at the same time.

What is your goal? Decide first what you want out of your exercise program. Do you want to lose weight, tighten up, or just build endurance? Determine your goal, then find a path forward that will keep your baby engaged and entertained. That might mean your baby sits on you while you do butt raises or you adjust your squats to include a kiss on the top of your baby’s head. Whether you are touching or just interacting, your baby will enjoy the exercises if you keep her involved.

Keep focused. My favorite source to find exercises is the Exercise Finder at Divine.ca. You start by targeting specific areas on your body, then you are given a list with line drawings and clear descriptions. Some of these could easily be adapted to include your baby.

Find company. Better yet, you may also want the company of other new mothers. Look for a mother and baby exercise class in your area. If your baby is less than one year old, don’t sign up for the toddler class, though. Exercising with toddlers is another matter entirely—one I will write about next week.

You need the workout, and your baby needs you. Everyone can get what they want and need with a little clever planning.

Resources

• The Mommy-and-Me Workout with photos and detailed descriptions of each exercise.

Image © Oksun70 | Dreamstime.com

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Newborn babies need a little help maintain their body temperatures in any season. Winter can mean cold winds and warm houses that leave it difficult for a baby to adjust. Be aware of your baby’s needs to help maintain a consistent body temperature.

Normal body temperature for a newborn baby is 97.5-99.ºF (36.5-37.ºC), about the same as your normal body temperature. Babies, though do not yet have the ability adults do to regulate their body temperature. They don’t have the insulation through layers of fat, and their large body surface area in relation to low body weight means more heat loss. You don’t need to pull out the thermometer every hour, though. Just feel the back of your baby’s neck for a quick temperature check.

We give babies a little extra help through clothing and coverings, adjusting room temperature, and keeping them close to us.

Around the House

All newborn babies need some help maintaining the right body temperature, but, if your baby had low birth weight, was born early, or is sick, take special care to monitor body temperature and keep your baby warm.

You are your baby’s best warmer. You can warm your baby through skin-to-skin contact, also called kangaroo care. Put your naked or diapered baby against your bare chest, then cover you both with a blanket. This is perfect for breastfeed. Even without kangaroo care, breastfeeding gives your baby warm milk and warm skin. Babywearing, whether just around the house or when you go out, also keeps you and your baby close.

Clothing. Choose clothing that allows the baby’s skin to breathe, using one more layer than you need. If you are in a T-shirt, add a light jacket or a footed suit in addition to a T-shirt. If you are wearing a sweater, you baby will need at least a sweater, too. Do not, however, layer your baby in too much clothing, causing overheating. If you are wearing your baby, count the wrap or sling as a layer. Don’t forget cold legs when pants ride up in the baby carrier. Baby legs or handknit socks will help.

Hat. Especially during the winter, your newborn will probably need to wear a hat, since babies lose heat through the head. Have lightweight cotton hats for indoors and a warmer, woolen hat for trips out.

Bath Time

Make sure the air and water temperature are comfortably warm without being hot. After the bath, dry the baby immediately. If the room temperature in your house is cool in the winter, you might want to opt for warm sponge baths for your baby. The most important step in keeping a newborn warm during bath time is drying off quickly to avoid heat lose through evaporation.

Nighttime

Your baby doesn’t need a blanket, not in the traditional sense of a large rectangular covering. Babies obviously can’t adjust their covers, so a blanket not only doesn’t stay put but could become a hazard. Your baby is better off wearing the blanket in the form of a worn sleeping bag for newborns or a footed sleeper suit as babies get older. Wool is perfect, since it breathes naturally and helps sleepers regulate their body temperature.

If your baby takes well to swaddling, this will also help maintain body temperature. Not all babies like being wrapped up so snuggly, but do try swaddling.

Going Out

Keeping your baby just the right temperature when it’s biting cold outside is tricky. Have a great insulted suit with legs, if you are going in the car. Although you baby will stay warmer with legs together and those newborn legs naturally want to curl up, you need legs separated for a car seat. If you are on foot and wearing your baby, a vest that covers you, your baby, and the baby carrier, like our Peekaru fleece vest, lets you keep your baby warm with your own body heat.

Be careful not to overheat your baby outside, though. Avoid direct sunlight, especially in the car, and don’t leave an insulated suit on for long drives in the car. Choose light layers of clothing that are easy to remove one by one as you move through your day and the temperature changes.

You are the perfect temperature to keep your baby warm but not too warm. Keep your newborn baby close this winter.

Resources

• Dr Tamara Keith, “Keeping Babies Warm,” July 5, 2012.
• World Health Organization (WHO), Thermal Protection of a Newborn, 1997.

Image © Kati Molin | Dreamstime.com

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The possibilities are endless when you focus!

Don’t try to psyche yourself into anything. Just write out three specific goals, review them every day, and make them happen. Even tiny steps will get you there.

I’m not saying don’t set a big goal, but I am saying I want you to have a guaranteed success. If you want to lose 50 pounds, how about setting your goal for 5lbs then coming back next month to set the goal for 5 more. If you want to make a quilt for your daughter’s bed, how about starting out with the goal of three squares then coming back next week with the goal for three more.

Don’t convince yourself that this is your goal setting for the entire year. New Year is just a good opportunity to check in and see where you’ve been and where you are going. This is just a milestone.

Basic Goal Setting with Children

I’ve been trying to teach my children how to make things happen for themselves, how to get past lists of wishes to lists of intentions to plans and to-do lists. An hour before midnight last night, we stopped their wild idea of what celebration should be to review the past year and talk about our new year.

You may know that I love sticky notes, so I will admit that there were a lot of sticky notes involved in multiple colors. You can see the results of our goals check in above.

How was this year? We started with one giant post-it note, but just a section of wall will do. Each of us chose a different color of notes then we wrote significant events for ourselves, our family, and the world on our notes and stuck them on the old year. A few had frowny faces, but most of our events were good. I was pleased to see that my children came up with “Had fun this year” and “I felt happy.”

How will this coming year be? I asked them to look at the things they did or things that happened in the past year and picture what they want to write in a year’s time. What do they want to do this year? We started a new giant post-it note, and we kept writing out ideas until they became silly (“Get abs” for my son).

What will you do? I told them that wasn’t the end because “Become a better musician” and “Learn to drive” weren’t specific enough. We each turned three of our wishes into goals on a final giant post-it note. We put the wishes along the left-hand side then asked what steps we can take to make them happen. “Become a better musician” becomes “Call my cousin about piano tuning” and “Go to the library for piano music books.” And, “Learn to drive” (yes, very scary) becomes “Go to DMV for driver’s handbook” and “Look up dates for drivers’ ed class registration.” After we came up with 3-4 steps that we could take for each goal, we added columns for “Next” and “Done.” We moved one note into the next column for each of our goals. My son wanted to move several notes into the next column, but I told him that only one step could be next. That seemed to help him understand what “Next” really means.

They were excited to get back to celebrations, but they told me that when they wake up today they plan to get to work on their goals and move notes into the done column.

Setting goals and checking in on progress can be easy. I want my children to understand how to move from vague ideas toward specific plans they control. Our 30 minutes with sticky notes was a good lesson. Now, the rest is in their hands.

Happy New Year! I hope you get everything you wish for, plan for, and work for.

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Puzzles and games are essential for every kid as holiday gifts. Where to find a game that doesn’t encourage competition and bad feelings, though?

Growing up in my family, every person had to receive at least one puzzle for the holidays. As I grew older and more smart alecky, I gave my mother puzzles with thousands of pieces, or glowing pieces, or same on both sides, or some other nearly impossible puzzle. She still worked her way through every one. Now that my mother is gone, I still need to give my mother-in-law and my children puzzles. They drive me crazy, but everyone else loves them. I realize more over time that putting together a puzzle is a meditative activity, and it has always been one of those essential holiday activities in my family.

If you find that your children need that quiet time during a busy holiday season, consider encouraging down time with a puzzle. Also, if they see you doing a more difficult puzzle, they will get more and more curious until they take over. That’s my experience, anyway!

Another of those essentials for my family both growing up and now with my children is board games or card games. My children love playing my old games, and we still add several new games a year to our game closet. Over the holidays, we give small gifts over several days, and one day is always a game for the whole family. Since there are no other gifts to distract us, we have a family game day.

There are a lot of classic games available, but I find that my children become more competitive when they see the opportunity to win. That isn’t really the feel I’m going for with family game day, so we favor the cooperative games. At bynature.ca, we carry a lot of cooperative games and puzzles to fit your family’s interests.

Puzzles for Children

Port Side Pirates Puzzle

Looking for an interlocking puzzle? Set sail with these two puzzles based on the Port Side Pirates sing-along book. The 12-piece puzzle shows the pirate crew discovering a treasure chest ashore the tropical island. The 24-piece puzzle shows the pirate crew sailing the high seas aboard their ship. The two puzzles allow for a range of difficulty included all in one box.
Age: 3+

Wooden Mosaic Puzzle

If you are looking for a puzzle that will last longer than an interlocking puzzle that is used a few times, try our high quality wooden mosaics. Our large puzzle has 192 colorful triangle an trapezoid-shaped pieces. Arrange them in the bamboo tray or go rogue and put the rainbow of colors together any way that suits you. Includes a travel and storage bag.
Age: 3+

Cooperative Family Games

Elves and Ogres

The Royal Elf Family is coming to visit their Mountain Kingdom. They want the Elves (players) to fill their treasure chests with the different gems they mine. Ogres, however, have heard about the visit and plan to grab all the valuables for themselves. Work together to get Royals & Ogres alike to share the goodies. The game requires lots of tricky teamwork, increasing in difficulty with rules for 3 games based on age (ages 5-7, ages 7-12 & ages 12+).
Ages: 5+

Snowstorm

When a winter storm hits the city, the players help out residents by completing their tasks. The weather is constantly changing so players must keep on top of errands by paying attention to weather reports and moving through snow and ice with cars and service trucks. The game is different every time you play.
Ages: 5+

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Holiday dinners don’t have to be exactly the same from year to year. By adding a theme to your big holiday meal, you can add even more excitement for your children and your guests.

Building family traditions doesn’t have to mean repeating exactly the same decorations, activities, and meals every year. We all look forward to some of our favorites, but the anticipation of seeing what will be new can be fun.

If everyone really craves a big turkey, you could keep the food the same and change the colors and decorations. If the family likes to travel—or wishes they could travel—you might want to eat holiday foods from elsewhere in the world.

In my family, we always have Christmas crackers because that is what my children love about Christmas with their grandparents in England. We always make the Swiss cookies that my grandmother used to make and all of my cousins still make. We generally use the nice china and silverware as well. But, that is all that is consistent. We like to eat foods from other places in the world.

The year of Hurricane Katrina, we had a Louisiana meal in solidarity with all of those who were still recovering. We had gumbo, which fits well with the green and red decorations, dirty rice, and other Cajun favorites then pecan desserts. One year, we couldn’t decide on turkey or goose, so we decided on a theme of Christmas is for the Birds. We started one night with Cornish game hens, the next with duck and goose in a kind of homemade Peking duck, then finally the more traditional turkey dinner. My English husband has a Finnish name, so we played on that another year with the theme I’m Finnish with Christmas. We had traditional Finnish soups and breads that we had not made before. I probably wouldn’t do any of them twice, but we love the brainstorming and planning as well as the meal itself. This year, I’m pushing for a medieval Viking meal with the theme Deck the Valhalls.

If you are looking for a way to add fun to your holiday traditions, consider what you want to stay the consistent year to year and what you might play with to surprise your children or guests at your big holiday meal. Did you travel recently? Do you remember what your grandmother used to make for holidays when you were young? Would you like to see if you really can have an entirely blue meal for a Blue Christmas? (You can! We have.) Look through the ideas that intrigue you, and include your children in the planning. Pulling together the big meal is one of the activities we enjoy the most about the holidays.

Happy Holidays, and eat well!

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