I always enjoy using board games when working with kids. Games are a familiar medium and improve a variety of skills, but they’re also fun. And if the kids are having fun, the better they’ll take to their new skills.
Because April is Occupational Therapy Month and board games are a frequent go-to for pediatric OTs, they’ve become our awesome #OTMonth blog theme. First up, CANDYLAND!
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Based on our Playdate Reviews, you know that Mary and I have been doing bi-monthly playdates with our kids for over a year now since they’ve been in the school-age stage. But for the last couple big playdates, I started seeing some patterns.
I feel like what we are seeing is probably similar behavior to what you’ve seen when kids are in groups: talking over each other, getting louder in volume, fighting for attention and showing off, getting jealous, making rash decisions, and going apesh*t when the playdate ends.
At the end of these playdates, I’ve felt like I had to incessantly apologize and abort mission on more than occasion. Baby and toddler playdates are going to have a different vibe, obviously. We are far from the time when we could’ve just hung out with wine while the kids did whatever.
That is not to say that all playdates are like this. I look forward to picking and planning these outings and our kids very much see each other as best friends. So let’s talk about the ups and downs of playdate behavior and what Mary and I have done to stay cool.
Continue readingIt’s November and that means you are either shifting to the holiday season, or you are in denial. Gift guides and catalogs will be coming out ad nauseam from your fave influencers to big box stores (if they haven’t hit your inboxes already). But to be honest, a lot of those gift recommendations tend to overlap. Enough with the Stanley cups and sneaker erasers already….
So what then is included in a Child(ish) Advice Gift Guide?
Here’s what we use:
For babies, their first year is all about firsts. They are learning about their environment, their bodies, and how to interact with everyone and everything, one cry and crawl at a time.
So, here’s our top toys for babies 0-12 months:
For our last playdate review of the year, we wanted to go big. We tried to see if there was a haunted house for little kids to go along with our spooky month, but sadly to no avail. Instead, we landed on everyone’s favorite childhood party venue, the hobby that got a glow up during pandemic, and a skill that is way easier to figure out than ice skating.
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Do you know how hard it is to come up with a title about jump roping that doesn’t go back to a cheesy song?
After our cartwheeling post, we started thinking about all the other recess activities we used to do in grade school: hanging on monkey bars, playing a rousing game of 4-Square, or that one week where it seemed everyone wanted to jump rope.
Although the jump roping origins is unclear, we do know it was brought over by the Dutch in the late 1600s. Kids were jumping and developing games with songs to keep themselves occupied. Some used two ropes, explaining where the term Double Dutch came from. As it gained popularity, kids would use any material (clotheslines, braided rope, etc.) they could find to make a rope and play with their friends. Unfortunately in the 1950s, with the expansion of television and radio, kids began spending more time indoors.
Now, if you peruse the internet about jumping or skipping rope, you’ll find that this pastime has generally been rebranded as a great cardio workout (Woohoo, Jump Rope for Heart). No doubt it is, but let’s talk about what else it can do for our kids’ development.
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Child(ish) Advice 