Making the most of your child's early education experience:

This little car

This little car is going on a trip. Trip. Trip. Trip, trip, trip. A little game like this - turning your finger into a car and driving it down the road is an exciting time for the brain - as vision tracking is engaged, eye-hand coordination is enhanced and fine motor skills are being practiced. This simple game is a brain workout in disguise. It can be found in the AWAY WE GO Home activity guide. (From the Kindermusik "Our Time" home materials.)

Kindermusik classes have a great deal to offer families who want to be very involved in their children's early education. It's a good beginning that never ends.

Thanks Helen, you are so wise.

Serving Suggestion!

The Holland Farmer's Market was in full harvest yesterday. The colors are spectacular. At the Boeve's stand, where I work there were big rainbow piles of sweet peppers, cauliflowers of white, orange, purple and green Italian cauliflower! Huge, dense cabbages (I sold one which weighed 9.99lbs for $1.25!), sweetest onions you've ever had, piles of tomatoes, bright green delicious broccoli.....

It was cold too! The change of seasons is coming through.

So I have lots of veggies in my kitchen right now. It takes time to make a meal when you start by chopping the vegetables instead of opening the plastic bag! Do we have time for this? Yes, we must! Here's my philosophy.

First cut up a red or orange pepper. (They are THE sweetest!) Arrange on a dish and leave on the counter. As the hungry children come by they nibble! Then Get out a second cutting board and knife and have them start chopping vegetables with you.

How young do you start them with this kind of work? As SOON as they are interested in dragging a chair over to the counter and standing on it begging to help. It does increase the time it takes to make the soup but this is an investment you will want to make. Because now when we are cutting and chopping we are also talking. It is a way of creating time and space for sharing what's on their minds and what's on your mind. It works well if you don't have an agenda...if the door to conversation is just open. Maybe you are just going to listen for a while. Maybe you are going to ask them open ended questions. Maybe you'll sing: "This is the way we chop the tomatoes..."

(Claire was watching some children here at the house and they helped us cut and chop a huge mound of peppers for salsa and for freezing last year. We all had great conversation. This year they came over ASKING "Do you have any vegetables we can chop?)

What happens when they grow up and everyone is so busy running from here to there that no two people are in the kitchen at same time? Well, yesterday I came home and the Moussaka was already made. And it was SO delicious. Who chopped for that? Not me! Thanks Claire.

Leek Soup
Clean and chop 2 leeks
Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a skillet
Saute the leeks until tender
Heat up 2 quarts of chicken broth
Peel and chop 5 potatoes
Chop 4 carrots
Simmer everything in the chicken broth until cooked (about 45 minutes)
Add 1/2 Cup of half and half
Grate in about 1/2 tsp. of fresh nutmeg
Shake in about 2 shakes of cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste.

Do you LIVE in your living room?

Once when Claire was about 2 she discovered the scissors. Luckily the newspaper was nearby...actually right in the heavily used walkway going into the living room. She worked for almost 2 hours singing and cutting the paper into tiny pieces. (How long is a child's attention span?) (How happy was I for two hours to do things on my agenda?) She was getting very accomplished with those scissors and I was so proud of her new skills!

She was an absolute gray mess!!!! And the living room, already quite lived in, was a disaster. As my friend, Jody would say: "Signs of a struggle!"

Well actually, signs of LIFE. And for that I am grateful.
Today Claire who is 17 is very dexterous, making many things with her hands from her beautiful lampwork glass bead earrings to beautiful violin music.

In Kindermusik Our Time we begin working with our hands and fingers while we singing "If You're Happy and You Know It". Time for children to explore their little hands and the many things we can do with them! They look so intently at their hands and you can almost see them thinking: "So THESE are thumbs!"

So when you find life in your living room remember this:

A House Becomes a Home When You Can Write "I love You" On the Furniture

Life is short. Enjoy it! Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better to paint a picture or write a letter, bake a cake or plant a seed, ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time, with rivers to swim and mountains to climb, music to hear and books to read, friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there with the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair, a flutter of snow, a shower of rain. This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind, old age will come and it's not kind. And when you go- and go you must- you, yourself will make more dust!

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

author unknown
Peace, Yvette