25 Dinner Table Questions for Kids

About a week or so ago my son came home from school with a list of 25 ways to ask your kids how their day at school was.  Rather than just "how was school today?" The questions were more fun, and thought provoking.

Sadly, our dinner table conversation is not much of a conversation at all but more of "sit down" or "pull in your chair" or "eat over your plate."  So, one night after dinner I took out the list and gave it a try asking both my 10 year old and 5 year old some of the questions.  It was such a hit that they asked for more....yay!

If your family could use some fresh conversation at the dinner table here is the list of 25 questions the school sent home:  HAVE FUN! (note: I loved number 12 and asked that one first!)

1. What was the best thing that happened at school today?

(What was the worst thing that happened at school today?)

2. Tell me something that made you laugh today.

3. If you could choose, who would you like to sit by in class? Why?

(Who would you NOT want to sit by in class? Why?

4. Where is the coolest place at the school?

5. Tell me a weird word that you heard today. (Or something weird that someone said)

6. If I called your teacher tonight, what would he/she tell me about you?

7. How did you help somebody today?

8. How did somebody help you today?

9. Tell me one thing that you learned today?

10. When were you the happiest today?

11. When were you bored today?

12. If an alien spaceship came to your class and beamed someone up, who would you want them to take?

13. Who would you like to play with at recess that you've never played with before?

14. Tell me something good that happened today.

15. What word did your teacher say most today?

16. What do you think you should do/learn more of at school?

17. What do you think you should do/learn less of at school?

18. Who in your class do you think you could be nicer to?

19. Where do you play the most at recess?

20. Who is the funniest person in your class? Why is he/she so funny?

21. What was your favorite part of lunch?

22. If you got to be the teacher tomorrow, what would you do?

23. Is there anyone in your class who needs a time-out?

24. If you could switch seats with anyone in the class, who would you trade with? Why?

25. Tell me about three different times you used your pencil today at school.

Hershey's Snowman Chocolate Milk Bottles

My son LOVES Hershey's Chocolate milk.  The one grocery store that sold them stopped and we couldn't find them anywhere.  I happened to be at a store I do not normally shop at and low and behold, Hershey's chocolate milk!

Our Elf on the Shelf has arrived and one morning the kids woke up to a traditional North Pole breakfast!  Including our snowmen chocolate milk bottles.

My intent was to make reindeer milk bottles but when I peeled off the Hershey's label and noticed it was all white I quickly changed my mind to snowmen!

Here's what you'll need to make these adorable snowman chocolate milk bottles:

Hershey's chocolate milk

Hot glue gun

Black pipe cleaner

Orange pipe cleaner

Black pom-poms

Googly eyes

Ribbon

Once the label is peeled off (which is SUPER easy to peel off) 

• glue on your googly eyes 
• glue on snowman's nose with a tiny piece of orange pipe cleaner
• wrap ribbon around the neck of the bottle for the snowman's scarf
• glue on pom-pom's for snowman's buttons
• glue on black pipe cleaner for snowman's arms

There you have it!  A fun way to serve up chocolate milk!  OR you could even choose to recycle the milk container and do this after the chocolate milk has been enjoyed!

Advent Calendar Bags

Each Christmas I make the kids an Advent calendar.  Last year I made a toilet paper roll Advent calendar that was alot of fun to make and enjoy.

This year I found these bags at Dollar Tree and knew they would make a great Advent calendar.

The bags came 12 to a pack and since we countdown all 24 days I needed 2 sets. Some folks might countdown just 12 days and in that case only 1 set needed.  What a fun and frugal way to countdown to Christmas!

Other than filling the bags, the only other thing I needed was some way to number the bags.  I had a roll of labels sitting around our craft cabinet for years and finally was able to put them to use with this project.

Supplies needed:

Dollar Tree Christmas bags
White labels (or number stickers)
Black Permanent marker

The last part and the part I enjoy most is filling the bags.  Some bags contain notes about things we can do on the particular day.  Some of my notes include baking, watching a Christmas movie and driving around to look at Christmas lights.  Other bags contain dollar store trinkets like a jingle bell necklace, card games, Christmas socks and I even stuck a couple of dollars in one and some candy in others.  There are so many great ideas to fill your bags with!

As far as displaying our bags at first I was going to use some red buckets from the dollar store but the buckets were not quite big enough.  I decided to try and use what else I already had on hand so I cut a piece of baking twine and used clothespins to hang our bags along our staircase. I will do this same thing to the other side of our staircase counting down all 24 days.

That's it! This was so easy, frugal and practical.  This project cost a whopping $2 (not counting the trinkets but you could just do all notes which costs nothing and offers the most fun!)

12 Kid Friendly Winter and Christmas Activities

I am rearing up for the holiday season! All of these activities have been done by our family so I can personally attest that they will bring fun to your holidays!

CHRISTMAS I SPY BOTTLE:



SHAVING CREAM CHRISTMAS TREE:




WINTER DIORAMA:



PINECONE FLOWER POTS:



REINDEER FINGERPRINT LABELS:



FROZEN PLATES:



THE MITTEN TREE BOOK AND ACTIVITY (BIRD SEED MITTEN TREE):



THE MITTEN BOOK AND ACTIVITY:



WHAT'S THE MISSING NUMBER (CHRISTMAS STYLE)



THE GINGERBREAD PIRATES BOOK AND ACTIVITY:



CANDY CANE KISS COOKIES:



TOILET PAPER ROLL ADVENT CALENDAR:



I hope other families will enjoy these activities as much as my family has!

Cardboard Book of Thanks

As I was looking for some cardboard I came across a cardboard book cover.  I decided to add some paper to it and let my 5 year old turn it into a book of Thanks.

Since my daughter is just learning to spell I figured she would have a challenging time writing out what she was thankful for.  Instead, I suggested she use the camera and take pictures of the things she's thankful for.  She loved the idea and immediately started wandering around the house snapping pictures.

Here's how our book started off:

I gave my daughter some stickers, helped her spell the words, Give Thanks and then let her decorate!

Next, I cut paper to fit inside the book, used our whole punch along with some string and added the paper to the book.

After my daughter snapped a bunch of pictures she added them to the pages.  

Once all the pictures were added I helped my daughter write the names of the things she was thankful for.

Here are the pages of her "Give Thanks" book:

  This turned out to be a fun way for my daughter to show what she's thankful for.  We are displaying it on a table in our kitchen. Our kitchen is a high traffic area and so this book gets alot of attention as friends and family come to visit.  I will be proud to display this book for years to come......

Coffee Filter Turkey

There has been a huge stack of coffee filters in our craft cabinet that cannot be used for coffee anymore so the new purpose will be crafts!

Our first coffee filter craft was to make Turkeys.  My 5 year old enjoyed all the aspects of this craft from coloring the coffee filter to spraying the water to decorating her turkey.

Here's the supplies you'll need:

Coffee filter
Markers
Spray bottle filled with water
Brown/Tan construction paper
Orange construction paper
Googly eyes
Craft foam/construction paper
Feathers (optional)
Glue stick

Start off by coloring your coffee filter with different color markers.  The more colors used the more colorful the turkey.

This was my daughters favorite part, spraying water onto the coffee filter.  It's very cool watching the colors swirl together.

Coffee filters dry rather quickly but if you want to speed up the process you can use a hair dryer.  

dried filters

Take your brown or tan construction paper and free hand draw the turkey.  Attach the turkey to the coffee filter.  

Use your googly eyes and yellow foam or construction paper for the nose.  We added some turkey legs by folding orange paper like an accordion.  

My daughter decided to add a few feathers to her turkey too!  

Panda Cupcake Fun and Book Panda-Monium

I am addicted to kids books and I'm proud to say so is my 5 year old daughter.  We love our bi-weekly library visits and although my daughter seems to gravitate towards her favorite books over and over I enjoy finding new stories that we can share together.

At one of our recent visits I stumbled upon a winner called, Panda-Monium by Cynthia Platt.

 I love when I close a book and can say, "that was a great book!"  That's exactly what happened with this one.  Panda-Monium is a rhyming story about an adorable and hungry panda named, Beckett.  As Beckett tries to find some bamboo to eat other panda's follow Beckett along.  One then two, then 3 and on and on.  I think my daughter counted a total of 16!  Such a cute story that engages the reader with it's colorful fun illustrations and rhyming words.

I love to pair a good book up with an activity.  Since we have been doing some baking over here with my son's recent birthday and preparing for the upcoming holidays, I decided to try making Panda cupcakes!  I'm all about easy and fun when it comes to baking.  You can read more about other cupcake ideas in our post 5 Cupcakes for the everyday Mom.  This Panda recipe is no different.  It's perfect for those of us who enjoy baking but not real fond of the decorating part of it.

For this recipe use any store bought cake mix and follow the instructions on the box.

Once the cupcakes are baked and cooled here's what you'll need:

• White store bought icing (I used the whipped)
• Mini Reeses Pieces or mini m&m's.  (I only had the Reeses Pieces on hand so I used those and picked out the brown pieces.)
• Chocolate sprinkles
• White sugar (optional)

I started off by icing the cupcakes and then simply adding on the Reeses Pieces.  I used the Reeses Pieces for the eyes, nose and ears.  The chocolate sprinkles were used underneath the nose.  Option 2 is after icing you could dip the cupcake into a bowl of white sugar and then put the Reeses Pieces on.  I did a few like this but found the pieces stuck better without the sugar.

cupcake WITH sugar

cupcake WITHOUT sugar

My kiddos loved them and my husband admitted that he snuck back into the kitchen for more!!

Another reason baking with a child is fun is because it helps build a child's vocabulary, math and fine motor skills!

Such an easy, fun and delicious cupcake recipe to make!