Life with two young kids means lots of time spent playing.  Our house is full of pretend games, silly stories, art projects, songs and all around play.  It’s important to me as a mom that my kids look back on their childhoods with memories of happiness and laughter.  Besides I’m also a believer in the Maria Montessori quote that “play is the work of the child,” so that all time spent playing is my kids way of learning, developing and exploring. 

We do quite a bit of cooking, and we’re starting to involve Clare in some of it.  Her favorite toys, besides  books, are her play kitchen and food.  Every day she’s cooking some type of food in her kitchen and serving it up at her table.  The Kids’ Kitchen as we call it specializes in “delicious cookies,” “dog poop milk,” and “yummy soup.” 

Every now and then I get the idea from a parenting blog to do some kind of homemade preschool craft activity.  The one above was homemade moonsand – which was 4 cups flour mixed with 1/2 a cup of vegetable oil.  It was great fun, a great sensory experience for the kids and kept them occupied for a good 40 minutes.  By the end approximately 3 cups of moonsand was spread all over my kitchen floor and the remaining cup was rubbed into our clothes.  The clean up took another 40 minutes, so we probably won’t be recreating that until the weather is better and we can go outside.  Sometimes this “play is the work of children” thing is pretty messy.

When I’m home with the kids on weekends on Mondays and Tuesdays I try to do some type of art activity – even if it’s as simple coloring with crayons.  Sammy has started to get in on the painting action.  We listen to music and sing songs constantly.  Sam really likes Old McDonald Had a Farm – especially the animal noises.  Clare is moving beyond nursery rhyme songs and likes the Gaelic Storm song “Tell Me Ma.”  We listen to easy to sing songs by Carol King and James Taylor a lot, and Clare is still a Beatles fan.